Victor Morgendorffer
by Shiva-J
Summary: As the Morgendorffers move to Lawndale, how different would things be if Daria and Quinn had a little brother named Victor in middle school? Well, this is his story...
1. Part 1

**Victor Morgendorffer (Pt. 1)**

At the dinner table, the five member family finished eating their first meal in their new home.

"Or rather what will be called 'the Morgendorffer McHouse'." a boy named Victor Morgendorffer joked to himself as he wiped his mouth with a napkin before setting it down on his empty plate.

He glanced around the kitchen, pretty much everything was unpacked except a few loose ends, but that would be dealt with later.

An itch in his eyes forced him to blink for a little bit, he was still adjusting to the contacts.

"Is something wrong Victor?" his mother, Helen spoke up with worry.

"Just the new lenses, Mom." he answered while rubbing his brown eyes a bit before the itchiness went away.

He heard Daria mutter something about why he was bothering with them in the first place but ignored it.

But then his mother picked up on the gist and began to hint (very obviously) that Daria should consider it as well.

Ignoring this as well, Victor glanced at his other big sister and his Dad and noticed that they were both lost in their own little worlds.

Feeling the start of a headache coming on, Victor just pushed his chair back and left the table without another word.

It took awhile before anyone had noticed.

In his new room, the walls were freshly painted green and black and the carpet matched.

Posters of various bands and fantasyscapes were up, there was a couple of bookshelves dedicated to books, CDs, and his collection of movies.

Victor smiled as he put on the best of Pink Floyd, and opened the window just a crack, the song 'Money' filling the room and making his bad mood go away.

In a corner of the room was an altar that he had lovingly set up almost as soon as his claim to the space had been staked.

"Or rather I got the leftovers." Victor muttered to himself once more.

While Quinn had claimed the already frilly and pink room without missing a beat, he and Daria had been forced to flip a coin to see who got the cool padded room.

"At least Mom let me pick out how it was supposed to look." Victor reminded himself as he knelt in front of his makeshift worship site.

The icons were of various deities and saints, ranging from Hindu gods to Catholic saints, though most prominent were the Buddha statues since they were the biggest.

He sat cross-legged and opened a small, hidden drawer underneath the altar and pulled out a small baggie with a single joint in it, and a lighter.

As he toked up and focused on the feeling of the divine within, Victor let the music, the weed, and the Gods to take him away from it all.

He suspected he would need it to survive his first day at Glenfield Middle School.

"At least I won't have to deal with my sisters in the same building at school for a whole year." Victor randomly thought to himself.

As long as he made a couple of friends he'd be ok.

Especially if they had good weed and shroom connections, like Ricky had with his big cousin Todd.


	2. Part 2

**Victor Morgendorffer (Pt. 2)**

As Victor brushed a hand through his long dark red hair, he kept reminding himself that he shouldn't be surprised nor disappointed that his mother had bailed on driving him to school for his first day.

After all work always mattered more to her than anything else.

Though thinking about Daria and Quinn both getting rides from Dad was making him want to grind his teeth.

He had spotted the sign for the school bus stop on down the end of Glen Oaks Lane and discovered only a couple other kids his age lived on the same street.

One was a sporto type that didn't interest him, the other a quiet mousy girl that refused to say more words than she absolutely had to.

"This is going to be a long day." Victor muttered to himself as the bus finally decided to show.

* * *

For some reason the bulk of the kids on this particular bus were the squeaky clean, preppy, fit in at all cost types.

Which meant that the new kid with the long hair, the pierced ear, motorcycle boots, ripped jeans, a Gorillaz shirt, and an oversized skull ring on one finger managed to snag a seat all to himself.

No one seemed willing to talk to him, other than to ask his name or try and make fun of him.

Victor had learned well from the masters on how to deal with this.

He just told them to fuck off.

"My prediction came true," Victor said to himself after dealing with yet another would be tormentor, "This _is_ going to be a long day."

He took out an old tattoo magazine to distract himself.

* * *

"Hey," a voice emerged, breaking his concentration, "Can I sit with you?"

Victor looked up from the pics of ink and saw a scrawny thing standing in the aisle, he had tanned skin, wavy brown hair, and wore blue jeans with a zipped up leather jacket.

Victor shrugged, "Sure."

The kid slid in next to him and said, "Danny Moreno."

"Victor, Victor Morgendorffer." Victor replied in a faux James Bond parody.

Danny laughed, "Movie buff, good. It'll be nice to have a _cool_ new kid for once."

Victor started to wonder if things were looking up, just as he caught his first glimpse of Glenfield Middle School.

Then he thought better of it.


	3. Part 3

**Victor Morgendorffer (Pt. 3)**

Classes turned out about how he expected them too.

The bulk of the teachers either didn't know the subjects they were teaching, or just didn't care and were just there for a paycheck.

Then in the case of his English teacher, 'Call me 'Ken' Edwards it was obvious that cat was around for something completely different.

"If I was Daria I would be forced into some absurd situation that would lead to him being fired." Victor thought to himself as the letch tried to work his 'charms' on one of his classmates.

She clearly wanted to kick him in the balls.

Victor just shrugged it off, it wasn't his problem.

Though when he mentioned it to Danny, his new companion shrugged and answered, "Ken's brother is the Principal of the school, unless someone presents physical proof to whoever's above him then he'll never get fired."

Victor suspected that apathy was contagious in Glenfield.

* * *

As they had a couple classes together, Victor was able to learn a little bit about his new possible friend, Danny Moreno.

That he lived in Lawndale with his Dad (Mom had split years ago) and that he had an older brother who worked in the family's business, an auto repair shop, when he wasn't moonlighting as the Rhythm guitar player for a garage band called 'Mystik Spiral'?

When Victor asked if they were any good, Danny answered with, "Only if you are deaf."

The topic changed to the various people that he would be dealing with for the next few years.

Most of whom Victor suspected he wouldn't have much interaction with.

But a couple faces and names did stand out.

Like the Griffin brothers, Sam and Chris, though they stood out since they were fond of picking fights, both with each other and other people.

They had been eyeing him up a bit, but hadn't done anything, yet.

"Looks like I'll be putting Todd's moves to good use." Victor thought to himself about all the stuff he had picked up from Ricky's cousin.

A couple of loners seemed interesting, but neither of them had introduced themselves.

One was a Goth kid named Damien Hebuca, the other oddly enough had the same vibe as his big sister Daria.

"Never thought I'd meet a male Daria." Victor had muttered to himself when he had seen Lincoln 'Link' Gingold for the first time.

"Who's Daria?" Danny had asked.

Victor smirked, "Time for you to learn a little bit about me."

He then told Danny about his family, the workaholic mother, the emotionally unstable (but lovable) father, and his two sisters.

"Daria is moody and can be temperamental, but she's more reliable than Quinn. Useless, worthless stupid bitch!"

The last was said with a snarl and a sneer.

Danny decided not to pry.

* * *

The ride on the bus back home was uneventful, other than when Sam Griffin had managed to get Chris in a strong enough chokehold that he turned purple, but seeing his new home street did remind Victor to exchange numbers with his new pal.

Especially since during their talks Danny had made mention of a place in Lawndale called 'Dega Street' and it seemed like the place to be.

"But directions and being with someone already in the know is always a good thing." Victor thought as he stepped off the bus and walked the block back home.

* * *

Once more Victor discovered that dinner was frozen lasagna, and that his mother was still in the middle of one of her 'parenting kicks'.

"Are we sure that the Body Snatchers haven't replaced Mom with a bad duplicate?" Victor muttered to Daria.

Her eyes seemed amused with the reply, "Don't worry, this is temporary. Soon enough the Helen we've come to tolerate will return, and veer between work and trying to control us."

Then the phone rang.

"Hello? Yes. Uh, yes, she's my daughter." Helen said into the phone.

Daria had a look on her face that told Victor that this was most likely about her.

"I see. Listen, will this require any parent-teacher conferences or anything, and if so, is this the sort of thing my assistant can handle? Okay, great. Bye!"

Then she turned to face his two sisters, "You girls took a psychological test at school today?"

As Quinn whined about the grading or something like that, their mother revealed that the psychologist at Lawndale High thought that Daria had low self-esteem and that they were sticking her in a special course.

Daria then informed them that she didn't have low self-esteem.

She had low esteem for everyone else.

Victor couldn't help but like her answer.

* * *

_Knock! Knock!_

"Enter at own risk." came Daria's monotone from the other side of the door.

Victor entered her padded cell with only a slight twinge of envy.

"How's my depressed sibling?" he teased, shutting the door behind him.

Daria was sitting on her bed with the family's old TV set now in her room, with Sick, Sad World about to come on.

"Coping." she teased back and made some space for him to join her.

As it turned out, it was an old repeat.

"At least it's a good one." Victor thought aloud as the announcer talked about the secret covert OPs unit... That was headed by chimps.

"Wish I had some weed for it though." Victor admitted with a shrug.

Daria glared at him, "You're not allowed to do that in my room Vic."

He nodded, not wanting to piss her off.

"I wish you didn't smoke at all..." Daria began; sounding so much like their mother it was disturbing.

Perhaps even for her, since she stopped and said, "But it's your choice, but if I get a whiff of you doing anything stronger..."

The threat lingered.

"You'll narc to Mom and she'll stick me in military school so fast that I'll start ranting like Dad." Victor said with boredom and a yawn at the end.

Daria's face softened a bit.

"And who says that the youth of today can't learn anything?" She asked with a Mona Lisa grin.

Victor couldn't help it, he grinned too.


	4. Part 4

**Victor Morgendorffer (Pt. 4)**

The next day at school saw more of the same, though Victor did find himself falling into a comfortable pattern with Danny.

In their shared classes and any other time available to them, they'd hang out and just 'shoot the shit'.

Though during lunch he managed to ask the question he had wanted to ask since getting into Lawndale in the first place.

"So Danny," Victor said casually, "Do you know where a bloke could get his hands on a little..."

He then made a *puff* *puff* motions with his fingers to his mouth, miming holding a joint.

Danny Moreno just smirked, "Yes I do, I'll introduce you to a couple people in the know after school."

"Sweet."

"Think you can get away from the rents though?" Danny asked.

Victor just laughed.

"Dude, my parents are barely there workaholics, that's never a problem."

* * *

On the bus ride home, Victor simply got off with Danny and followed him into what looked like a rundown part of Lawndale.

Danny pointed at a single story red brick house and said, "This is my home."

He then glanced at the driveway and said, "Good my big brother's here, this'll save us time."

"Cool," Victor replied as they entered and looked around.

It was fairly obvious that while the house was kept picked up and cleaned, it had the air of a place that had never experienced a woman's touch.

The strangest sounds were coming from down a hallway near the living room, Danny motioned for him to follow.

Once they reached the second door on the right, Danny simply opened it while yelling, "Yo Jesse, whatsup?"

The room was a den of some sort, the hint of incense and pot hanging in the air, and sitting on a towel on the floor was a dude in all black from head to toe.

Though he was wearing a leather vest with no shirt, and he looked like the older, more muscular version of Danny.

But for some reason he was playing a sitar.

"Hey Danny," Jesse answered, his eyes exposing that he was blazed, "I'm experimenting with new sounds."

Danny just smirked, "I've heard this line before. Well anyway, mind taking the two of us to Dega Street for a little weed?"

Jesse answered, "Not at all, but I've gotta stop at Trent's first, mind?"

"Not at all," Danny replied.

Victor glanced at Danny and asked, "Trent is...?"

As Jesse began to get up off the floor, Danny explained that Trent Lane was his big brother's best friend and fellow band member in a group called Mystik Spiral.

"Are they any good?" Victor asked as they moved to the side so Jessie could take the lead.

Danny just laughed and said no more.

Victor decided that it didn't bode well at all.

* * *

Jesse's ride turned out to be a beat up looking truck that seemed to be on its last legs.

Thankfully it didn't die in route, though as they pulled up to a two story house that seemed almost as dilapidated as the truck, Victor couldn't help but think, "Why do I feel like I'm back in Highland?"

As the trio approached the front door there was movement at the curtains of the front window and Danny seemed surprised as they heard a girl's voice call out, "I have to unlock it."

"The lock works?" Jesse thought aloud as they heard someone fiddling with it.

"I guess so." Danny replied, seeming to be surprised at something like that.

Victor on the other hand was getting curiouser and curiouser by the second.

Then the door opened and everything in the _whole fucking world_ seemed to stop.

Standing in the doorway was the most beautiful person that Victor had ever seen.

She had short cut raven black hair, three silver piercings in each ear, the most expressive blue eyes, her lips were painted a most becoming shade of red and curled into a mischievous grin.

Not even the fact that she was wearing a red lab coat, shorts with leggings, and combat boots took away from her looks.

To Victor it sort of added to them in a strange sort of way.

"Hi Jesse, Danny, kid I've never seen before." she said while letting them in.

"Hey Jane," Jesse drawled, "This is Danny's friend... I forget his name."

"That's because I didn't tell you." Danny snarked while elbowing Jesse in his abs, "This is Victor, Victor this is Jane Lane, Trent's sister."

Victor for his part was staring at Jane vacantly, thanking God that he wasn't openly drooling.

He told himself to maintain, and be cool.

So he gave a very weak wave and squeaked, "Hi!"

Jane's smirk grew, "I'm glad you guys showed up now, a few minutes ago some dudes showed up trying to repo the house."

"That sucks." Danny answered as if this was perfectly normal.

But considering the conditions of the place, Victor suspected that it just might very well be par of the course here.

Jane shrugged, "Well they didn't deliver the notice, so no harm no foul, at least until I get around to forging a check."

She lead them upstairs as she said this, and the sounds of someone playing Nirvana's 'Come As You Go' became more audible.

The room that she brought them into was easily the messiest that Victor had ever seen.

Endless piles of laundry and debris were scattered about everywhere, and on the barely intact bed was a twenty something stoner/slacker dude playing the guitar from which the cover song was emanating.

And sitting on the floor was the _last_ person he had expected to bump into.

"Yo Trent!" Jane yelled out over the music, making everyone in the room jump, "Jesse and his kid brother are here."

From her prone position on the floor, Daria turned to look and did a double take.

"Victor?!"

"Yup," he replied to his big sister, "It's me."

Jane looked between the two of them and noticed a slight resemblance and asked, "Related?"

"Victor's my little brother." Daria answered while standing up, "So I'm guessing that the kid your age is the Danny friend that you made yesterday, right?"

Victor nodded and introduced Daria to Danny and Jesse Moreno.

He them glanced at Jane and back to Daria and replied, "I'm not the only one who made a friend either."

Daria nodded and added, "I know, shocking right?"

Jane decided to cut into the sibling banter and said, "Well now that we are all pleasantly surprised, Trent, why don't you and Jesse try to surprise us by playing something worth hearing."

Trent began to laugh but it turned into a coughing fit, "Alright then."

Jesse froze for a second before realizing something.

"Uh dude, I don't' have my guitar on me."

"Hmm," Trent drawled, "Is it in your truck?"

Jesse refroze in place as he tried to think.

Danny just shook his head and said while heading out, "I'll check."

* * *

After finding only a lone sitar, Danny had brought it back into the Lane's house.

Where Jesse and Trent then demonstrated their ability to destroy everything that was music with a beat up Fender guitar and a Sitar.

Daria and Victor both turned to Jane for mercy.

She in turn distracted her big brother with a beer and had Danny deal with his brother.

Which consisted of, "Jesse, remember we were going to Dega Street."

"Oh, cool." Jesse answered while wondering where his Sitar had gone off too.

It was in Victor's hands, he had snatched it while Jesse was distracted.

With instrument in hand, Victor turned to Daria and said, "I'll see you later at home."

Daria nodded and replied, "I'll beat you there I guess, Jane's walking me home."

Victor then glanced at Jane Lane and started to get that vacant look again.

Daria just gave a Mona Lisa smile.


	5. Part 5

**Victor Morgendorffer (Pt. 5)**

Victor found himself in an aptly named head shop called '4/20' on the rather seedy area of Lawndale known as Dega Street.

It resembled every single head shop he had ever been in, there was a big display case packed with roach clips, pipes, bongs, papers, rollers, vaporizers and the like.

There were also some Eastern/New Age knickknacks, some hippie clothing on racks, and a small bookcase with books on, you guessed it, weed.

Jesse rang the small bell on the counter and a couple seconds later, a girl with long pale blond hair stepped out.

"Can I help... Oh hey Jesse." she drawled.

"Hey Burnout." Jesse replied with a friendly wave.

"Yo!" Danny piped up.

"Hey." Victor added.

Burnout stared at him for a moment, one of her hands playing with the sleeve of her jacket.

Victor stared back, noting that her clothing reminded him of Daria, if she was a stoner.

"Is he cool?" Burnout suddenly asked out of the blue.

"Yeah, he's cool." Danny answered with a nod.

She offered Victor a small smile, "Ok then, follow me."

Then she turned with her hair swishing about, revealing a large red skull on the back of the jacket and she went through a bead curtain into the back of the store.

Jesse and Danny motioned for him to follow.

Through the curtain Victor found himself in a long hallway, but he only had to walk a few feet before being pulled into the second door on the left.

Victor found himself in a surprisingly normal looking office, the only sign of what this place was about was an old, faded poster of a hippie Alien holding up peace signs with the phrase, 'I Come in Peace' printed on the bottom.

Burnout then went over to a corner where a rather large fridge sat, she then said, "Ok, so how much you want?"

"Just a quarter." Victor answered.

"The cheapest stuff costs ten, primo goes much higher depending on what strain you want." Burnout recited, clearly having done this before.

Victor shrugged and answered, "Give me the good stuff."

Burnout smirked and pulled out a bag from the fridge that was partly orange.

She told him the price and was surprised when he paid it, clearly she had expected him to either bargain or go for something lower grade.

There were benefits to being in a family that used cash bribes in lieu of actual time together.

Then Jesse apparently decided that he wanted to restock as well and simply said, "The usual."

Burnout nodded and tossed him a bag out of the fridge without even looking.

"Pleasure doing business with you both." she drawled before leading them back out.

Only once they had left the shop did Victor ask, "So who's owns the place? Cus she seemed rather young."

Danny laughed, "Old Man Burns owns and runs 4/20, and the growing op that's in the basement. But it's sort of a family thing too."

"Ah," Victor answered with a bag of weed in his pants pocket, just waiting to be tested.

* * *

As they came up Victor's street, he could have sworn that his Mom's new SUV came down the opposite way.

But he dismissed it with a shake of the head and a, "No way."

Once Jesse pulled up, Victor offered to show them around the Morgendorffer's new home.

"Sure." Danny replied and then had to prod Jesse into action.

"What? Oh cool." Jesse drawled, having already forgotten and then was reminded of what was happening.

Victor just shook his head before getting out of the car to let them in.

* * *

The Moreno's were impressed by the Morgendorffer's new found status as 'the Joneses' that all the other families had to keep up with.

Victor explained as he took them upstairs that his mother's new job and his father's new business was pulling in the big bucks.

"I guess the bribes are getting better, right?" Danny asked.

Victor nodded, "Yeah, it's to make up for the neglect."

Neither Jesse nor Danny could think of a response to that.

Victor pointed out the rooms, but brought them into his without bothering to see if Quinn was home.

He decided not to bother Daria in her room since she was either sleeping or studying at that point in the night.

"And this is my room," Victor said as they stepped in and he flipped the light, revealing his black and green space in all its glory.

"Nice digs man." Danny said clearly impressed.

"Cool." Jesse added helpfully.

Then as Victor opened the window a crack, Danny's eyes fell on the makeshift altar and he said without thinking, "I didn't think you'd be into this sort of thing."

Victor noticed what he was looking at and laughed.

"Yeah me neither," he answered honestly, "I was pretty much like Daria about spirituality once, then a couple summers ago during my brief stint in the Boy Scouts, a friend of mine named Ricky had snagged a couple joints off of his cousin, Todd."

Victor laughed again, "Not knowing that they had been dipped in Peyote."

"Whoa!" Jesse and Danny exclaimed.

Victor smirked, "Yeah, picture a group of fresh faced sixth graders in the middle of the Texas desert at night with the scoutmaster passed out from Jack Daniels, smoking it up."

Victor started to get a faraway look, "It really opened my eyes, I mean it was like I had found my place in the universe... I can't really explain it, you'd have to experience it for yourself."

He then sighed, "Well after that I did a lot of reading and I found out about Shamans and how they would do stuff like Peyote to talk to the Spirits. So I did a bunch of experimenting and learned about the religions, but in the end I only felt right when I made it up on my own. You know?"

"Not really," Danny answered with shrug, "I've been the party hard type myself."

"Yeah." Jesse added even while sitting down on the floor cross-legged, "But maybe if you showed us..."

Victor grinned, "I don't have any peyote, but let's see where this takes us."

He then took out the freshly bought bag from 4/20 and shook it a little.

In Victor's room, three dudes grinned like they had gotten away with stealing the Hope Diamond.

* * *

Meanwhile in a Cashmans at the Lawndale Mall, one Daria Morgendorffer was praying for an end to her suffering as her mother modeled different colored pantsuits in the name of bonding with her daughter.

"I hope Victor's had more fun than me tonight." Daria thought as her mother came out in a dark blue version of the same outfit she always wore.

The torture couldn't end soon enough in Daria's opinion.


	6. Part 6

**Victor Morgendorffer (Pt. 6)**

The next morning Victor woke up with a very hazy memory and after checking his room and seeing that Danny and Jesse weren't present, tried to remember the details.

But it was simply too hazy.

He groaned and found that he had somehow gotten into bed, fully clothed and had wrapped himself up tight in the blankets.

Then he noticed that the room was ice cold and saw that his window was still open.

He sighed and crawled out of the sheets and closed it before grabbing some stuff out of his drawer and stalked out of his lair.

A quick cleanup and some eye drops in the eyes later he was presentable.

Victor discovered that he was the first one up and warmed up a bagel and threw some butter on it.

By the time he had finished it the others began to trickle in.

"Morning." Victor said weakly, but no one took special notice since he was not a morning person.

While Quinn complained about Daria's breakfast choices, his father was burying himself in the newspaper and Helen was already glued to her phone.

"The benefits of being the forgotten child," Victor thought darkly, "They don't notice that their kid gets high as a kite, or anything that he does for that matter."

Daria noticed that he was glaring at the parental units and quietly walked to his chair from the fridge and whispered, "You've still got me Vic."

"Don't call me that." Victor whined even though his old nickname made him grin.

Quinn looked up from her carrot sticks and copy of Waif and saw her little brother smiling at Daria for some reason and wondered why.

Then she had a mental picture of herself in those new strappy sandals and she stopped caring.

* * *

Much to his relief Victor saw that Jesse's car wasn't parked in front of the house, so they clearly made it home, safely he hoped.

He waited anxiously for the bus to arrive, he couldn't wait to chat with Danny and get his take about the night before.

It couldn't come soon enough, for once, but when it did he climbed aboard and took his new usual seat and waited for Danny's stop to pop into view.

Victor breathed a sigh of relief when he saw his friend at the stop once they pulled up.

Once on the bus Danny made a beeline and sat down next to him.

"Victor, how you doing man?" Danny asked normally, though Victor could see that his eyes were still red and not from a lack of sleep.

"Good man, what about you and Jess?"

Danny grinned and laughed, "Great man! That was some good shit."

They both laughed and Victor felt better, there had been no reason to be worried at all.

* * *

In their English class, El'Creepo Edwards himself decided that they should work on a group project, to explore new 'sensations' in literature.

The literature being of their own choosing since for some reason the school board wouldn't let him do a lab on the 'wonderful' book Lolita.

"Or the novel that I'm writing." Edwards said with his usual pitch.

Victor tuned him out.

But they discovered that Edwards wanted them in groups of three to even out the numbers in the room.

"Who can we put up with for more than five seconds?" Victor wondered as he and Danny looked around.

A straggler stood out, a fellow black clad figure, but unlike Victor, he was a full fledge Goth.

"Yo, Damien," Victor called out to get his attention, "We need one more."

The scrawny thing jumped a bit and a couple idiot girls giggled, he flushed red but came to them in a huff.

"Sorry about that." Victor said politely, but Damien brushed it off.

"Whatever," he said flatly, "Let's just do the stupid assignment."

Danny spoke up, "Well if we explore sensations, let's make them ones that no one will ever want to hear about again."

"Why?" Damien asked with indifference.

Victor and Danny both gave evil grins, "So we don't have to do crap like this ever again."

It didn't take more than a second for Damien to match their wicked grins with one of his own.

"I think I have a book in mind for something like this..." Damien said as he pulled a beat up looking paperback from his pocket.

"Never read it." Danny admitted after looking at the title, but added that it seemed interesting.

Victor however laughed, "Trust me Dannyboy, this book is more than interesting, it's perfect."

He then looked at Damien and said, "So... want to join our group on a more permanent basis?"

"That's a quick offer," Damien answered in surprise, "You sure man? Really sure?"

"Yeah," Victor answered with a grin, "Anyone that reads Clive Barker _has_ to be worth knowing. It's practically a law."

Damien gave a deep evil laugh, but his voice cracked halfway through and forced him to stop.

"Good enough for me." Danny said, throwing in his own two cents.

"Well let's get cracking then." Victor replied while pulling out some paper and asked Damien to select passages for them to quote.


	7. Part 7

**Victor Morgendorffer (Pt. 7)**

"Wow," Daria said once Victor had finished telling her about his day, "I have to hand it to you guys, that is impressive."

The two of them were sitting in the living room, a bowl of popcorn between them and the TV on in anticipation of Sick, Sad World.

The parental units were somewhere in the world, and Quinn was still MIA and could stay there as far as Daria and Victor were concerned.

"So I assume that I've gained your unneeded stamp of approval?" Victor asked with eyebrow raised.

"You assume correctly." Daria replied with her metaphoric tongue in her metaphoric cheek.

Victor gave a wicked grin as his reply before digging out some popcorn and munched away.

After swallowing he asked Daria about her day and she growled. "Well it was the new same old BS, except that my brilliant scheme to get Me and Jane out of the Esteem class backfired."

"How?"

Daria snorted, "Because Mr. Touchy-feelie O'Neill decided that the best way to commemorate his students passing early was to parade us in front of the school in a special 'graduation ceremony' tomorrow."

Victor shuddered, "Brrr! Daria, what did you say to him?"

"Nothing," Daria answered honestly, "He actually believes his own bullshit."

"...Shit!" was Victor's brilliant answer to the situation.

Daria nibbled on a kernel while Victor asked what they were going to do now.

She shrugged, "Jane's already going to ham up a freakout, as for me? Well... Let's just say that Quinn's going to regret saying that she's an only child."

Victor snarled, "Is that stupid bitch pulling that crap again?!"

"Yes," Daria said very flatly, "And since we're talking about Quinn I'll forgive the language."

Victor nodded just in time for the television to blare that their show was now on.

* * *

It took a little digging through his bookshelf, which due to the recent move had left his previous memorized pattern of book organization in complete disarray.

But in the end he found his own copy of the book they were using and laughed himself silly trying to imagine the look on Mr. Edwards face when they made their presentation on 'new sensations'.

Or whatever the excuse was for their teacher to go 'creepy uncle' on his students.

As he sat down at the small work desk in his room, Victor wished once more that he had his own computer, but even after years of asking for one every Birthday and Christmas his parents had yet to buy him one.

"Daria has one and if Quinn wanted one they'd get it for her in a heartbeat." Victor complained out loud, "But not me, oh no never me."

And he knew the answer, because his parents were focused on their jobs and what little time they had at home was spent refereeing Daria and Quinn's endless war.

He didn't even rate much more than the occasional pat on the head or a scolding.

He put the small novella next to his pile of mostly finished homework and glanced at the dog-eared book he had read over and over again, looking for answers on much bigger questions than his Algebra homework.

It was _The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead_ by Timothy Leary.

In his copy there were a lot of loose pages and notes stuffed in between them, things he had jotted down or highlighted since he found it interesting.

Victor pulled out a little cue card he had made, the one that listed the so-called 'Five Levels of psychedelic experience'.

What he had experienced in the desert had been a definite Level Five, it was also the only time he had reached such a state that he was certain it was level five.

Afterward he had only been around Levels One and Two, since he had kept mostly to weed and the occasional foray into shrooms, he hadn't been able to get his hands on Peyote again.

Highland was mostly a Pot, Pills, and Meth town, only the first drug held any interest to him.

Now in Lawndale however...

"Now that I've gotten into the Burns good books I should be able to find people who can hook me up with the more interesting stuff." Victor thought to himself as he contemplated the cue card.

"When I'm ready of course."

For now he was content to explore his spiritual development in the 'kiddie pool' so to speak, but the time would come when that wouldn't be enough.

So Victor slipped the cue card back into its place in the book, glanced for a moment at his bookshelf and wondered if he needed to look into anything else that night before shrugging it off.

Victor decided to stick with his standby that night.


	8. Part 8

**Victor Morgendorffer (Pt. 8)**

In Mr. Edwards 8th grade English class, three black clad figures stood in front of their peers with dark glee in their eyes as the designated speaker of the group, Danny, read aloud their report on the subject of 'new sensations' from a book of their choosing.

Mr. Edwards was paralyzed with horror, and their classmates were for the most part a combination of repulsed and various kinds of turned on.

It could have been due to the material chosen, since they had chosen _The Hellbound Heart_.

"And I'll quote again from the novella," Danny said with the sort of smile that a judge would convict you on with no other evidence presented.

_"He was dimly aware, as he worked his inches, that he must make a pitiful sight: a blind man in an empty room, aroused for a dream's sake. But the wracking, joyless orgasm-"_*

When Danny reached the word 'orgasm', Ken Edwards managed to find his voice and said very loudly, "I think that's _quite_ enough for one day. Yes..."

"But we have five more pages to go!" Damien protested and not even an idiot could miss the mockery in his tone.

"It's enough!" Edwards replied forcefully, quite green in the face.

Victor Morgendorffer idly played with his ring as Edwards then struggled for a minute to come up with a grade, if he failed them then an attempt to contest the grade could result in some sort of investigation, but he clearly didn't want to give them a good one either despite obviously having earned it.

"B minus." Edwards stammered out after quaking in his cheap shoes.

Damien Hebuca's lips snarled and he began to complain, however he stopped when Victor put an arm on his shoulder and whispered, "We've won for now."

Damien nodded curtly before following Victor and Danny back to their desks.

Once seated they had the pleasure of watching Edwards stammer out that the rest of them could just hand in their assignments to prevent anything else 'overtly provocative' from being read aloud.

"But isn't that what he wanted?" Danny whispered to Victor, who grinned in response.

Sitting in the back of the room, a boy with dark brown hair, glasses, and a bad attitude wasn't slumped in his arms asleep but was wide awake and focused on the three black wearing dudes who had just curb stomped the obvious pedophile they had for an instructor.

Behind his aviator glasses, his eyes had a gleam of intrigue.

* * *

After class, Danny, Damien, and Victor found themselves the objects of attention from most of the students of Glenfield Middle School as word of what they had read aloud filtered through the gossip chain.

"I can't buh-leave those freaks would do that!"

"You think they do drugs and stuff?"

"They're probably fags and junk."

"Total deviants, like my Mom says people like that don't have futures."

"Who else would do something like that in PerveWards class then a bunch of mini-perves?"

However the three of them also found themselves accosted by a small minority that had been impressed by what they figured was a prank.

Technically they were correct, it _was_ a prank, even though at the time they had just viewed as a means to mock Ken and his attempt at getting fantasy material for himself.

Then when Victor was getting his books for his fourth period class, there was a tap at his shoulder and the voice of Sam Griffin filled his ears.

"Dude!" Sam said as Victor turned around, "I just wanted to say that was AWESOME!"

"The Edwards thing right?" Victor asked and couldn't resist a weary grin when Sam nodded enthusiastically.

"I told my brother all about it, after pounding on him a little. I mean _dude_ that ruled!"

Victor began to reply but a flash of color flooded his vision and Sam Griffin was taken down by a tackle from his brother, Chris who had gotten a running start during the distraction.

As the Griffin brothers began to wrestle each other into submission on the dirty hallway floor, Victor just raised an eyebrow and wondered for not the first time as to how the school hadn't kicked them out already.

He then closed his locker and walked away with books on hand, ignoring the crowd that had gathered to put their latest bets on the feuding brothers, not a teacher in sight.

Victor rounded a corner and fully intended to put the growing noise behind him when another voice emerged from the shadows of a doorway nearby.

"Congratulations on breaking Mr. Edwards." the voice said in a flat dull tone that very much reminded Victor of his sister Daria.

Victor stopped in his tracks and the figure emerged into his line of sight, he wore baggy khakis, a red shirt, aviator glasses, and had dark eyes and curly dark brown hair.

"You're Link, Link Gingold right?" Victor asked, trying to guess the name of his classmate.

Link nodded, "I'm surprised you know it."

"Well there is roll call and all." Victor said with a shrug.

Link just sneered, "Never paid much attention, I don't even know the names of half the people here."

"What about the other half?" Victor asked with interest, feeling like he was talking to a Daria with male bits, but wanting to make sure that this kid was on the level.

"They all suck!" Link hissed and then added, "But you and those other guys seem ok. Maybe."

Victor just gave a Mona Lisa grin and responded thusly, "Link, I think you and me are going to get along famously."

* * *

Lunchtime at Glenfield was very much a regimented affair, the Jocks and the other Populars had the tables nearest to the doors and the hierarchy took tables in order on down all the way to the bare edges of the lunch line.

This was where Danny and Victor were sitting with Damien by themselves, which said something of how others viewed them at the school.

But if anyone brought it up to their faces, they'd just be told to fuck off, which coming from Victor had real bite.

He had been trained in the art of intimidation by the best.

"Hey Victor," a now familiar voice said from nearby, "Mind if I sit with you guys?"

Danny and Damien both looked at Link Gingold curiously before glancing at Victor who nodded.

Link gave a hint of a grin as he sat down next to Damien, and was facing Victor who was seated next to Danny on the other side of the table.

"Welcome to the unpopular section." Danny said with a shrug.

"I'm already unpopular." Link replied with a tone of dismissal, "Anything new to add to the list?"

"How about being part of a flock of unpopulars?" Damien joked, "Now that we've joined forces, our unpopularity is compounded tenfold."

"Great," Link answered, "That'll give the unwashed masses another reason to stay away from me."

Link said that with enough glee that Victor thought to himself.

"Oh yes, he's pretty much a younger male Daria alright."

The he remembered the prank that she and Jane had in store for Lawndale High and snorted.

Victor noticed the three curious looks and explained.

All of them were snickering after that.

* * *

Standing at the podium in the auditorium, Daria faced her peers and watched with glee as Quinn was being interrogated by a couple of popular guys and her new friends sitting behind her in the audience.

She glanced at the weeping Mr. O'Neill, then at the football Coach who was looking at her like she was crazy.

Ms. Li was fuming.

"Mission accomplished." Daria thought to herself as she took a mental picture of Quinn in anguish before walking away and heading off the stage and going out of her way to ignore the hissing of the Principal.

She needed to find her new friend and fill her in on what she missed.

"This calls for pizza." Daria thought to herself with glee and hoped that there was something in town other than a Pizza Forest.

She would only inflict that on her family, and with the addendum if Victor was either on the joke or could avoid the atrocity.

Daria slipped out the auditorium and felt confident that she had broken even that day. A rarity at school that needed to be treasured.

Since most of the rest of the days sucked, and sucked badly.

* * *

_*Note: Direct quote from 'The Hellbound Heart': By Clive Barker_


	9. Part 9

**Victor Morgendorffer (Pt. 9)**

The next night saw Victor and his friends hanging out in the Moreno's living room with the TV on, an old episode of Ratboy playing away.

"So your sister managed to sweet talk your family into going to that dumb UFO convention." Link commented once Victor finished telling them the story, "Nice, did you get anything?"

Victor laughed, "Well besides photographic evidence of Quinn at such a dorky event, I snagged a large alien action figure that you can do an autopsy on."

Damien laughed darkly, "Cool..."

Danny in the meanwhile was pulling out a new joint and sparking it up, "You know Vic, you never told us why you don't like that other sister of yours so much."

Victor sighed, "True, and it's kind of complicated."

Danny took a drag and passed it to Damien, then said, "Hell, I don't think the others have even met her."

Victor looked at him funny, "I don't think you have either."

Danny nodded while Damien inhaled, "I saw pictures in your house man. She's cute."

Victor grunted, "Trust me, that's all she has going for her."

Damien then handed him the joint and said, "The only way to watch toons man."

Victor just chuckled before smoking it up himself, and then he looked at Link and asked if he wanted a hit.

Link shifted uncomfortably in his seat and reluctantly said yes.

Victor gave him a lazy grin, "Man, no one here is going to force you to do it. You can say no and we won't judge you."

"Judging people is reserved for the crappy people at Glenfield." Damien added with a random giggle.

Link took a deep breath and reaffirmed his yes and Victor passed him the joint, Link inhaled and instantly started gagging.

"Virgin lung!" Victor teased while taking the joint before the kid burned himself with it.

It took Link a little while to catch his breath but he took the joint and inhaled again, this time it went down smoother.

"What do you think?" Danny asked him, but Victor shook his head.

"It's a little early, give it time."

Danny nodded even as Link got his bearings and asked for a soda.

During the rest of their time at the Moreno's the group discovered that pot gave Link killer cottonmouth since he sucked down half a case of Ultra Cola before he was sated.

* * *

The next day at school was a Friday, which meant that weekend beckoned and thankfully the day seemed to flyby.

In every class in which at least two of them present turned into a blast, jokes were exchanged, the students mercilessly mocked behind their backs, the teachers driven to wits end, and at what seemed to be the center of it all was Victor Morgendorffer in a white shirt, black jeans, boots, seeming to be a combination of Willy Wonka, Timothy Leary, and the Devil.

Or so Link thought at one point as all four of them slacked off from their gym class, the three of them seated with Victor somehow in the center of the group, lounging on the bleachers like a monarch.

"Hey, you Deviants!" Coach Hickman yelled at the four of them before blowing his whistle, "Get back to doing squats!"

"Slave driver." Danny complained while rubbing his stomach.

"Deviants..." Link droned to himself, and caught Victor's attention, "I've heard people calling us that a lot since yesterday."

Victor's grin would have been appropriate on Satan himself, "You have to admit that it does have a nice ring to it, doesn't it?"

Link jumped a bit at the sudden noise, but he relaxed and replied, "Well if people are going to call us something, why not own it?"

Danny replied as they made a big show about getting up, without somehow actually moving at all, "You sure we want to be the Deviants? What about the Quartetto?"

"Quartetto?!" Damien Hebuca said back, "Is that Italian?"

Danny nodded, "Yup, plus chicks like foreign words."

Victor shrugged, "Meh, we can still think about it. No rush, right?"

Link began to respond but another blast of Hickman's whistle cut that off, and the four of them had no choice but to join the rest of their classmates and exercise.

* * *

Before school ended at 7th period Victor invited the guys to his place to hang out and knock out the weekend's homework so they could spend the rest of their time doing whatever they wanted.

Which resulted in the Morgendorffer's living room being taken over by four boys, the coffee table covered in books and papers, and with Sick, Sad World playing in the background.

"Ok so solving for X is..." Danny muttered as he did his Algebra.

"Hey, what's the capital of Poland?" Damien asked randomly, his Geography homework in front of him.

"No, you got this part of the problem wrong..." Link was explaining to Danny who was glaring at his homework like it was pure evil.

Victor heard the front door open as he finished his vocab words and saw Daria walking into the house with Jane Lane and his heart skipped a beat.

"Oh hey Daria, and Jane!" Victor yelled and waved wildly at them from the chaotic scene.

His friends turned to see the two older girls walking in, pictures of Anti-fashion at its best.

"Oh hey Vic, Victor's friends." Daria teased as she looked at the group with only minimal interest.

Jane however smirked and led Daria towards them, "Let me guess, the Friday homework crunch?"

Victor nodded while feeling quite flush, "Yeah..."

Danny and Damien both looked at Victor and Jane, or rather _how_ Victor was looking at Jane and stifled chuckles.

Link however was focused purely on the auburn haired girl in front of him, her figure hidden by an ugly green coat and a bad attitude, but those legs, ah those _legs_...

He struggled to think of something cool to say.

What he came up with was a random burst of, "Hi, my name's Link."

An awkward pause fell on the scene and Link wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

Daria however replied, "Hey, I'm Daria, but Victor just told you that."

Jane just gave Daria a look but didn't say anything, instead she asked the guys for their names.

Victor pointed them out, "That's Damien Hebuca, Link Gingold, and you already met this bozo here." He then pulled Danny into a knuckle sandwich and Danny's protests began to turn into a wrestling match.

"Knock it off." Daria cut through the mood like a knife, and the two boys stopped in mid twist on the couch.

Jane however was looking at Damien funny and said, "Hebuca... Are you related to an Andrea by any chance?"

"She's my sister." Damien answered with a shrug.

"Oh."

The pause was broken by the sound of the front door opening and the annoying voice of Quinn Morgendorffer saying, "Can't stop to talk Mom and Dad, I've only got like five hours to dress for Brittany's big party."

As a gorgeous redhead strode upstairs, wearing what looked like the latest stuff from Junior 5, Victor's friends watched her every step of the way before turning to Vic.

"Dude, that's Quinn?!" Danny said sounding strangled.

"Yes." Victor hissed, "And trust me, that's as good as it's gets."

While Danny and Damien absorbed this bit of news, Link turned to Daria and Jane and asked, "Ok, what's the downside?"

Daria answered, "She's a vapid, shallow, anti-intellectual sow who lives only for fashion, dating, and using her dates to get expensive gifts and cash. Oh, and she's big on teasing but never pleasing."

"A golddigger." Link stated and Daria nodded firmly.

"That's Quinn in a nutshell." Victor added firmly, Danny sighed in disappointment and muttered, "It's always the cute ones that suck."

Jane just snickered, "Well if I remember correctly I heard Ms. Quinn talking about a party at Brittany Taylor's..." She then looked right at Daria, "And I remember that you got an invite from the Queen of the Airheads since you helped her in Art, remember?"

"Yes," Daria replied with shrug, "But let's weight the cons first. We'll be dealing with the popular kids in a much tighter space and on their own turf."

"But," Victor butted in, "You have insider knowledge about Quinn, and all of her humiliating secrets. I'm sure that her competitors would simply _love_ to get the dish. Maybe you could even charge for it."

Daria thought this over for a second before she formed a Mona Lisa smile and said, "Victor, this is why I'm proud to call you my brother."

Even as Victor lapped up the praise, Link decided right then and there that he was in love with Daria Morgendorffer and wanted to marry her one day.


	10. Part 10

**Victor Morgendorffer (Pt. 10)**

Sadly Jane and Daria had gone upstairs to deal with their own homework related issues, but it did provide the benefit of getting Victor and the others focused back on their own work.

It took about an hour but all four of them managed to finish off the weekend homework with a sigh of relief.

Just as Victor put away the last of his papers and was thinking about asking if anyone wanted a soda, the sound of a car pulling up killed the thought.

A minute later his mother stumbled into the house, her briefcase dangling from her hand loosely, exhaustion evident in every step.

"Oh, hello Victor." Helen Morgendorffer said wearily to her boy, then she noticed three other boys around her coffee table putting away schoolwork.

"Oh are these your friends?" she asked through blurry eyes.

Victor nodded curtly.

Helen sank into an easy chair with relief and said, "Well, are you going to introduce me?"

Victor suppressed his annoyance and said as he pointed to each of them, "That's Danny, Damien, and Link."

Each boy greeted her in turn and Helen waved and gave them a polite smile.

Victor was feeling very thankful that his mother was too worn out to try and grill them.

"Rough day at the office Mom?" Victor asked very carefully and she shuddered.

"Oh God!" His mother began to complain, "Eric is all worked up about the negotiations involving possible zoning issues for that megastore that is thinking about moving into town and..."

She was cut off by her cellphone ringing.

"Hello?" she said into the device and perked right back up, "Eric! Oh the memo? I could have sworn that Jenna was supposed to deal with that."

Victor glanced at his friends and sighed, "Sorry guys, I think it's time for you to leave."

The gave him sympathetic looks before departing one by one, though Danny was the last one out and after thinking about it for a minute gave him a brief hug.

Ever after Danny was long gone, Victor found himself feeling a bit better than usual that night.

* * *

In his room with some music playing softly, the wonderful scent of jasmine incense filled the air as Victor sat cross-legged in front of his altar, trying to focus on his breathing.

In and out.

In and out.

In and out.

Victor slowly began to relax his muscles, feeling a strange tingly sensation as he seemed to slump into himself, and he began to feel still.

"Mo-om!" Quinn's voice screamed throughout the house, killing his concentration.

"Goddammit!" Victor swore under his breath as he got up, his muscles protesting each action.

By the time he had gotten out of his room and downstairs, the complaints of the middle child were loud enough for him to figure out what was wrong.

As Victor stepped into the living room, he had a little smirk on his face as he saw Quinn whining about Daria going to that cheerleader's party to their mother, who was only half-paying attention.

"I mean just by being there my popularity will go into free-fall!" Quinn screeched.

Daria was just standing stoically as Helen shook her head at Quinn, who was not taking being denied very well.

"Quinn," Helen said firmly, "This is the perfect opportunity for your sister to open up and meet new people."

"Yeah," Daria added with an ironic tone, "You wouldn't want me to not _socialize_, would you?"

Quinn began to hyperventilate before she hit on something.

"She can't go! Her room is too messy."

At that Victor butted, "Oh if Daria is going down for that one, you are going with her."

Everyone stared at him and once more Victor was reminded that the Daria/Quinn War ensured that they would forget that he was even in the same _fucking_ house!

"What?" Victor added with a shrug, "You left your door open sis, there's enough clothing scattered about to open a Cashmans."

Quinn gasped and then hit on another idea, "Daria can't go... She's charging me for getting my homework done."

Helen then yelled, "What?!"

Quinn then spent the next five minutes in damage control mode, but Daria was clearly going to the party.

Victor then felt someone approach from behind and was startled to discover that Jane was there.

"Is this normal?" Jane asked and gestured towards the scene.

"Unfortunately." Victor muttered, blushing.

Jane smirked, "You know, with your sisters out tomorrow I'd recommend staying at a friend's house. Unless you want your parents turning their focus onto you completely?"

Victor shuddered, "Good idea."

"Great!" Jane said with a cheer, "My brother and his band are doing a show at the Zon, Jesse's little bro gets roped in as a roadie so it'll be nice for him to have company."

"Cool," Victor said enthralled, "But what's the Zon?"

Jane chuckled, "It's a seedy bar, but as long as you sort-of look like an adult, you can drink and do whatever and no one will bat an eyelash."

Victor smiled brightly, "Cool..."

Meanwhile Quinn had managed to avoid punishment for paying Daria to do her homework for her, though later would learn that the gravy train was over.

No matter how much money that Quinn was willing to throw at the eldest.


	11. Part 11

**Victor Morgendorffer (Pt. 11)**

Saturday during the day for Victor was turning out to be a lazy day; he slept until noon and only woke up because his mother had come in and opened the blinds on purpose.

After some grumbling, Victor washed up and changed, secretly relieved that airing his room out along with the incense kept her from noticing the distinctive scent of pot.

He had bounded downstairs a little while later with an overnight bag slung over his shoulder and found that the TV had been taken over by Quinn and three of her friends.

Victor found himself wondering why they weren't raiding a mall somewhere even as he made a beeline for the kitchen and grabbed a banana, he took a minute to write out a note and left it on the refrigerator before walking out through the patio door.

He barely even noticed that his father had been sitting at the table with a small lunch in front of him, Jake had stared at his son the entire time he was in the room and seemed to struggle to say something, anything.

But by the time he had come up with the word 'Hi', Victor was already gone.

* * *

"Yo Danny my man!"

"Vic!"

The two boys gave each other a brief hug in the doorway before Danny Moreno let in in the house.

"So your parents are cool with you spending the night?" Danny asked as they walked through the Moreno's home to Danny's bedroom.

Victor shrugged, "Dunno, I just left a note on the fridge."

Danny stopped in his tracks, "What?!"

"I left the rents a note and the time when I'd be back, I've done it before." Victor answered as if this was normal behavior.

Danny chewed on that before saying, "Dude, my Dad works like a dog but if I tried to pull that crap I'd be paddled so hard I wouldn't sit right for a year!"

Victor's face fell, "At least it means that you have one parent that cares."

Danny had no idea how to respond to that statement.

So he just led him to the bedroom in silence.

* * *

The walls of Danny Moreno's room was covered completely in posters of hot chicks, motorcycles, hot chicks _on_ motorcycles, and every kind of rock band imaginable, the ceiling had banners proclaiming the glories of the Sturgis biker rally.

"And if there's a way to put posters on the carpet I'm sure Danny would be all over it." Victor mused to himself as he finished taking this in.

Danny very carefully opened the door to his closet and one peek revealed why. Danny's closet was packed to the gills with clothes and accumulated junk.

His friend seemed to steel himself before he started to dig through the mess, and the tremors from the objects inside had Victor worried that he'd have to dig Danny out of an avalanche.

However Danny emerged a few minutes later with a beaten up sleeping bag and said, "Sorry, it's the best that I can do."

Victor glanced at the sleeping bag and suppressed a sigh and said stoically, "I'll make do."

Danny glanced at the sleeping bag with a pensive look and then made a study of his bed and offered, "Well if it won't freak you out, you can sleep with me. I mean in my bed."

He said the last very quickly to ward off dirty jokes.

It was in vain.

Danny was very thankful that Link and Damien weren't there, since Victor had a pretty good repertoire of dirty jokes and puns accumulated from years of hanging around the Ianzzui's.

It made the afternoon highly entertaining, once Danny got over his humiliation and joined in.

* * *

Later that night, the Moreno household was inundated by Damien Hebuca and Link Gingold, who along with Victor were introduced to Danny's father, Luke 'Mo' Moreno for the first time.

Luke looked the part of a grizzled grease monkey who was starting to go past his prime, however Luke had a pleasant inviting demeanor and a big belly laugh that could make anyone feel right at home.

"So you're my son's new friends." Luke commented as he took a seat at the dinner table, "It's good to see you happy again Danny."

"Huh?" Victor thought to himself but before he could ask the obvious questions, his thinking was interrupted by the arrival of Jesse Moreno banging in through the kitchen side door, still in his work uniform.

It was the first time that Victor had seen him wearing a shirt.

"Oh, hey guys." Jesse said as he kicked the door shut behind him, "Is dinner ready yet?"

"No!" Danny said with a laugh, "We haven't called Pizza Prince yet."

Jesse smirked, "Well little bro you'd better hurry, we've only got a few hours before the Spiral is set to perform."

Luke laughed and shook his head, "So you kids got roped into helping Jesse and his friends set up?"

All four of them nodded and Luke laughed again, "Well just remember to have fun in between the hard work. Not that you won't be able to find it on Dega Street."

As Luke then motioned for Jesse to toss him the phone, Link and Damien's eyes lit up.

"Duuuude!" They went in perfect harmony.

"What?" Danny asked with a tilt of his head.

"We've never been allowed on the DS before man." Link explained, devilish glee in his eyes.

Damien's grin would have given old women an early ticket to that heavenly abode, "My sister always catches me before I can do too much, oh she's gonna flip when she can't do shit to me this go around!"

Victor gave a Mona Lisa grin and was glad that he called them earlier and asked if they wanted to pitch in.

A trip to the Zon on the weekend was clearly what the doctor ordered.

* * *

As Daria waited for Jane and her brother to pick her up for Brittany's party, her hand clinched around a crumpled up note.

It was the only sign of emotion from an otherwise statuesque figure.

When she saw a blue bomb of a car pulling up she stuffed it in her coat pocket, muttering that if her brother came home in one piece she was going to dress him down for not telling _her_ about staying over at a friend's house before bailing on the family.


	12. Part 12

**Victor Morgendorffer (Pt. 12)**

After a harrowing trip in the Tank, Victor found himself thanking the gods that he was still alive and in one piece.

"Though how the bands equipment has lasted this long is a damn good question." He thought while lugging an amp out of the back of the van.

Which coincidentally had served as a handy backrest when he had been wedged in between the amp and the drum kit.

He glanced at his friends and smirked.

Danny was helping Link lug another amp that had clearly seen better days, and more duct tape than could be considered healthy. While Damien was having to play peacemaker between the drummer Max, and the bass guitar player Nick, since they were having an argument over who ate the last of the Doritos the week before.

"Don't worry about them." Jesse explained from behind him, "They are always like this before a show."

"And after." He added with a shudder.

Victor turned and saw Jesse sitting on the sidewalk in front of the Zon, restringing two guitars.

Victor began to ask why he was doing this outside but stopped as soon as he opened his mouth.

With a shrug he turned back around and walked into the grungy red brick building.

The first thing that Victor picked up on was the smell, the Zon stunk of booze, pot, vomit, assorted other drugs, more vomit, and a certain perfume that came from never having been properly scrubbed since opening day.

Victor was reminded of the biker bars that he and Ricky frequented with Todd back in Highland and smiled at the fond memories of being a 'Little brother' in the eyes of guys who had _done things_.

It was only now turning dark, so the bar only had a couple early drinkers present, so Victor found it easy to navigate to the stage and set the amp down after climbing up the rickety side stairs.

Danny and Link were already there with a manual in front of them as they fiddled with wires that were held together with electrical tape and faith.

"...the blue wire goes here..." Danny muttered to Link.

"Are we sure that these things won't start a fire?" Victor asked to get their attention.

Link shrugged without missing a beat, "No and if they don't then the Laws of Physics no longer apply."

Victor had a feeling that this was going to be a long night.

Especially when Trent came in a few minutes later and promptly passed out on the floor.

* * *

"Why so glum?" Jane asked as she and Daria played the role of resident wallflowers at the popular kid's party in a tacky mansion in the Crewe Neck.

Her friend shrugged while putting away more money into her billfold, "Stuff at home."

Jane raised an eyebrow and asked, "Care to elaborate?"

Daria looked around, making sure that Quinn wasn't in hearing distance before explaining, "Victor bailed for the night and only bothered to leave a note. Again."

"He didn't even talk to you?" Jane asked in surprise.

Daria nodded, "Normally he does, and that's what's freaking me out."

Jane shrugged, "Well I know where he is."

"What?!"

"Trent recruited him and his friends to work as roadies at their performance tonight. So don't worry about it. He'll be fine."

"God, I hope so." Daria muttered even as she saw another generic blond popular girl approaching them, cash in hand, and eagerness gleaming in her eyes.

Daria and Jane both exchanged smirks, so far Daria had made over fifty bucks and the night was still young.

"I wonder if Quinn will hyperventilate or bribe Daria to stop talking." Jane mused to herself as the girl asked Daria if she was that girl with the scoop on Quinn.

Daria nodded and took the offered cash and began to tell her the corker about Quinn liking to poop in the front yard when she was five.

When the girl pulled out a pad and a pen, Jane was able to remember her name.

"Poor, poor Quinn," Jane thought with dark amusement, "With Tori Jericho on the case, you are so screwed."

* * *

"This counts as music?" Link asked with a tilt of his head as he and his buddies sat at their corner table and listened to Mystik Spiral's performance of the first song on their set list.

Mr. Normal.

"Well it has a beat." Danny offered in half-hearted defense of his brother and his friends.

"So does my heart," Damien snarked with a beer bottle in hand, "That doesn't make me a musician."

Victor smirked before taking another drag of his cigar, he normally didn't smoke tobacco but something about bars and booze just made it feel right.

The Zon was quickly filling up with the dregs of local society, and the alternative and unpopular kids that wanted to have a good time without judgments.

Victor suspected that he and his friends were the youngest people there, but Damien pointed out several high school kids and the complete lack of carding, so no one really bothered them on that score.

He then caught sight of a heavy-set girl with dark hair and Goth attire and amended that, but her gaze was focused on Damien and she was clearly torn between annoyance and worry.

"Don't worry about your little bro." Victor thought while checking Andrea out, "He's with me, it'll be alright."

Victor then said he was going to get another beer and asked if they wanted refills.

"Yes."

"Duh!"

"The only way I could listen to this garbage is with booze." Link added dryly.

"Gotcha." Victor said with click of his tongue before making a beeline for the bar, and the twenty something bartender didn't bat an eyelash at the order of four Budweiser's from a thirteen year old.

With cigar firmly clamped in his mouth, Victor managed to carry the four glass bottles back without dropping them, his buddies cheered his return with bounty and took the offering with good grace.

"Here's to having a good time." Danny said while offering a toast with his fresh brew.

The others clanked their glasses together with his joyfully.

Link took a gulp and barely suppressed the wince at the taste of cheap American beer and thought, "If it wasn't for these guy's I'd never do this. But I'll just have the one and be done, otherwise I'd probably turn into my father."

That grim thought was quickly washed away with another sip.

Link didn't want to feel like crap, he wanted to feel good, and the warm feeling was starting to kick in.

Danny and Damien were laughing over the sight of two bikers wannabes fighting over a chick covered in pockmarks.

Victor was putting out the butt of his cigar while drinking his beer when he noticed that Burnout was approaching their table.

"Yo, Jen!" Victor said in greeting.

Burnout nodded as the others turned to look, the only other one she knew was Danny Moreno.

"I didn't think I'd see you here Victor." Jennifer Burns drawled. Victor looked into her eyes and saw that they were clear.

So he shrugged, "I'm on break from my temp gig."

"Gig?"

Victor pointed at the band, "We're roadies tonight."

"Cool," Jennifer replied with a very slight grin, "So are you interested in music or just doing a favor?"

Victor began to say they were doing a favor, but Damien cut him off with a question, "Well of course music is cool, but you have a suggestion about learning to play or something?"

Jennifer shrugged, "Maybe."

Damien breathed, "Cool!"

Danny and Victor both began to wonder how they had wound up on this train of thought.

Jennifer laughed, "Well roadies traditionally are roadies because they want to become musicians themselves, so they work for bands so they can learn 'on the job' so to speak."

"Thanks for the music history lesson," Link teased, slurring his words a bit, "But what does this have to do with us?"

Jennifer Burns shrugged, "Nothing, everything, or it could just be how the four of you kind of reminded me of a band." Then after a beat she added, "Or it could be all those dead brain cells of mine acting up from beyond the grave."

That had the guys laughing on their barstools.

Jennifer simply smiled and walked away without so much as a goodbye.

"Wow," Link slurred after finishing his beer, "She's weird..."

"Weird is good." Damien said absently while nursing on his own beer.

As Mystik Spiral began to play 'Icebox Woman' Victor found that he couldn't agree more.

He then looked at Link and found himself thinking that he had had enough booze for one night.

"The kid's gonna have to work on his alcohol tolerance." Danny whispered to him with a sly grin and a nod towards Link, who was finding it difficult to stay on his barstool.

"I think we can help him with that." Victor said back with a grin of his own.

None of them noticed that Andrea had positioned herself nearby a little while ago and was keeping an eye on them and an eye on potential threats. She wasn't about to let her little brother get beaten up or taken advantage of if she could prevent it.

"But I am _so_ going to rip him a new asshole in the morning." She thought with a snarl, and unknowingly scared the crap out of two muscular thugs, one of whom had tribal tattooing on one side of his face.


	13. Part 13

**Victor Morgendorffer (Pt. 13)**

With Trent MIA at the Zon, Daria and Jane found themselves having to hoof it back home.

Though seeing Charles 'Upchuck' Ruttheimer III drive past in a pink Cadillac with Quinn Morgendorffer as his (barely) willing passenger had lifted their spirits.

"Between having to accept a ride from the King of Sleaze _and_ having to outbid all the popular girls to get you stop talking I'd say your sister's humiliation is complete." Jane said with a grin.

Daria smirked while fondling a large wad of cash in a money clip, "Between that and what I made before she figured it out I'm going home nearly three hundred dollars richer, what's not to like?"

"Exactly." Jane replied.

Though Daria found herself thinking of a certain little brother and had the mental image of Jane's older brother 'watching' over him.

Trent was many things, and inspired strange feelings that left her very uncomfortable.

But a responsible caregiver was a bit of a stretch.

"He's done alright with Jane," a nasty voice reminded her, "Maybe you've misjudged him."

Daria was forced to agree to withhold judgment, at least until she _saw_ Victor and then she could react as the situation required.

"God it sucks having to be the parent here," Daria thought with irritation.

But if she didn't do something, no one else would.

* * *

After the Spiral wrapped up their show near closing time at 2 AM, the boys helped them load the equipment (and a now passed out Link) into the Tank.

"He's gonna regret this in the morning." Danny snickered as they tucked Link in nice and safe in between the speakers.

At his side Victor smirked, "Yeah... We should have a bucket next to him, just in case."

"Yeah," Jesse drawled as he climbed into the back and set his guitar case down, "But that's just the price you pay to play."

Victor and Danny snickered even as Nick came up from behind, not seeing space though he simply set his own guitar case down and slid it across the floor.

"Ok, I get the message." Victor muttered with a glance at the bleach blond bass guitar player.

"Thanks kid!" Nick Campbell answered before climbing up and sitting on the edge of the back of the Tank, his legs dangling over the bumper.

Victor heard a door open in the front and saw Trent climbing in the driver's side.

"Hey!" Victor yelled to get his attention, "You know where Damien and Max are?"

Trent thought about it, "Max is still puking in the bathroom, Damien was there to hold his head up."

"Don't you mean hold his hair...? Wait gotcha!" Victor said as he recalled to his embarrassment that Max was balder than America's national bird.

"Blond moment?" Nick asked without a hint of irony.

"I'd have to be even more bleached out than you for that." Victor said defensively.

"Relax," Nick said with a laugh while pulling out a pack of cigarettes, "Just yankin' your chain."

Victor nodded and sat down next to Nick while he lit up and began to get his nic fix.

Victor looked over his shoulder and saw that Danny and Jesse had fallen asleep on two crates, it was almost cute how they were leaning on each other for support.

"And two more bite the dust." Victor said quietly to Nick, who glanced where the kid was looking and chuckled.

"If only I had the Moreno talent for falling asleep at will," Nick said after exhaling a drag, "As it is I get maybe four hours of sleep a night."

"Ouch!"

"It's not the worst thing in the world," Nick answered as they idly watched the late-night crowd mingle on Dega Street on a Saturday night, "I can handle this better than..."

He trailed off and his head fell down a bit, Victor glanced at the scrawny twenty something and really took him in.

Nick was wearing the cheap and ratty look that fit right in on the DS, and while his hair was fake peroxide blond, he had nice green eyes and only a couple of gold piercings.

While Victor was quite curious about what Nick had been about to say, tact won out.

So instead he said, "Don't worry about it, whatever is in the past. It's the past, man. It doesn't matter anymore."

Nick gave him a small smile and took another drag of his cigarette.

"Thanks Vic, I needed that."

Victor gave him a supportive pat on the back, but he caught sight of something familiar in the corner of his eye and leaned his head out of the Tank.

Coming out of the Zon, and an irate employee shutting the door behind them was Damien and his sister Andrea, with a barely coherent Max in between them.

For some reason though he wasn't wearing a shirt.

"Budge over, make a space." Damien said with a bubbly laugh that didn't match his gothic attire as he and Andrea practically _carried_ the drummer of Mystik Spiral to the Tank.

Victor and Nick swallowed sighs, and Nick managed to put his cigarette out in time to help them drag Max into the van and shut the door behind them.

Andrea was surprised by that and began to say she planned to walk home, but Trent turned the ignition on, drowning out her voice.

"Come, sit, and join the party." Damien said with a grin and waved to the barely awake band and their unpaid help.

Victor and Nick barely swallowed their laughter at the grimace on the Goth girl's face.

But she sighed and sat down as the Tank began to move, she took a spot that was across from her brother and said, "Damien you and I are going to have words tomorrow."

"You've said that already!" Damien said back with a laugh, having dealt with her dark glares all night with good humor that was induced by booze and some pot he had bummed off of a chick from Lawndale State.

"Damien..." Andrea began.

However her brother cut her off, "Andrea relax! Don't be a buzzkill, Sheesh!

Victor failed to hold back a chuckle that earned him one of Andrea's dark glares, which on a lesser mortal would have worked.

Not on Victor, he had dealt with Daria's steely-eyed gaze of death since birth.

* * *

The next morning for Link sucked about as badly as everyone had predicted.

He had found a handy bucket through his blurry vision and made good use of it, then realized that he was in a sleeping bag in the Moreno's living room, and he wasn't the only person in the room.

Luke 'Mo' Moreno's voice said, "Morning Kid!" and someone slipped Link's glasses over his eyes.

He found Mo Moreno in a nasty yellow bathrobe watching him from above with a smirk.

"My head..." Link moaned while rubbing his forehead.

Mo laughed, and caused Link to wince, "There's a bottle of aspirin and some water and toast in the kitchen."

Link began to emerge from the bag and looked around, only now did he see that other people were just starting to wake up.

"...Why did everyone stay the night?" Was what Link found himself asking as he saw Damien, Andrea, and the guys of Mystik Spiral sprawled through the Moreno's living room.

Mo Moreno laughed, "Happens all the time kid, breakfast and painkillers then?"

A sudden pounding in his skull made Link say yes without rationalizing it.


	14. Part 14

**Victor Morgendorffer (Pt. 14)**

After eating breakfast with his friends and all five members of Mystik Spiral, Victor managed to reach the bathroom first and had a quick shower and a change of clothes.

He made sure that the old ones were stuffed firmly into his overnight bag, to be washed when neither Quinn or Daria were in the laundry room.

Granted Daria already knew about some of the stuff he got up too, but letting her find out about the rest might earn him a one-way ticket to his father's old military school.

"At least Mom and Dad are always too busy to actually wash anyone's clothing but theirs." Victor muttered as he stepped out of the bathroom in his new threads, which was effectively the same as his clothing from the night before, just a different band (in this case 'AC-DC') was the only difference.

Link was next in line and stepped in gratefully, muttering about more ibuprofen.

Victor just chuckled, knowing that it wouldn't be enough.

He did spot Jesse towards the back and asked if he could give him a ride, once he was done in the bathroom.

"Sure Vic." The lug said back with a nod.

"Cool." Victor replied even as in in the front of the line, Damien began clutching his stomach and his legs began to sway a bit from the struggle of holding his overinflated bladder.

* * *

It only took about an hour to get everyone nice and (semi)washed up and presentable for the outside world on a bright and sunny Sunday.

Victor took one step outside and wished that someone could blow up the damn sun before it made his eyes bleed.

From behind him Jesse Moreno's laughter only added to his hatred of light and sound.

"Come on kid," the older Moreno said while patting him on the back and pushing forward a bit to get him moving, "Time to get you home."

"Whatever." Victor said with a shrug.

The only person worth going home to see was Daria, and he hoped she wasn't _too mad_ about him bailing on them.

* * *

After hopping out of the back of Jesse's truck, Victor waved and said, "See you later man!"

Jesse just waved back from the driver's side before pulling away.

Victor sighed and wished once more that he had thought to bring sunglasses with him the day before, he then trudged the few feet from the curb to the front door of home and slipped his key in the slot and turned it.

He stepped in and saw the living room to be mercifully vacant of Daria, just Quinn and her vapid friends chatting about meaningless garbage from Waif.

"...And Jassleen wore the wine red velvet top better than her rival Kathleen that's for sure," a girl in pigtails chirped happily.

"I agree with you Stacy," a disturbingly deep voiced girl said back, "For once!"

"Thanks Sandi!" Stacy said back.

"Whooo'sss thhaattt?" The Asian girl with the valley girl accent asked and pointed at him, Victor was surprised that any of Quinn's vapid friends noticed anything outside of their bubble at all.

"That's my cousin!" Quinn spoke up quickly.

"Uh Quinn," Sandi drawled and raised an inquisitive eyebrow, "I thought that weird girl was your cousin."

Victor decided to get comfortable and leaned on the front door after kicking it shut, wondering how Quinn would get out of this pickle.

"He's my other, younger cousin!" Quinn said even more quickly than before, "He and my other cousin are siblings who live with us for... reasons."

"I certainty bought your story." Victor thought sarcastically with a very slight smirk.

But against all odds her idiot friends _bought the BS_ and asked if he would be a bother.

"Oh not at all Sandi," Quinn said while making a shooing motion in his general direction, "It's like how you deal with your brothers, even though I don't see why you don't like them. Sam and Chris are always nice to me."

Sandi made a face.

Then before she could snap back, Victor found himself speaking up.

"Hey, Sandi right? Are you related to a Sam and Chris Griffin by any chance?"

The older popular girl got over the shock of being asked a question by a future unpopular boy and replied, "They are my barely tolerable younger brothers, why?"

Victor shrugged, "No reason, just curious."

Seeing the distraction of the other three as an opportunity Quinn slipped a twenty out of her purse and waved it in the air where her brother could see it.

Victor gave a very slight nod, always willing to take a bribe when he saw one and walked off without saying goodbye.

Seemingly forgotten the Fashion Club turned back to the task of dissecting the latest Fashions.

However once the meeting wrapped up, Stacy found herself asking Quinn very quietly what her cousin's name was.

"You mean Victor right?" Quinn asked irritably.

Stacy nodded and said, "You know he'd be better looking with a makeover..."

Quinn laughed, "Good luck! I've barked up that tree with him and my other distant cousin for years. At this point it's not going to happen, trust me Stacy. Don't go down that path, it'll bring you nothing but misery, and misery only brings crows feet."

They both shuddered at the thought of such severe premature aging and then gossiped about the latest happenings in the dating pool.

However when she was certain that no one was looking, Stacy tore out a blank page in her Fashion Club notebook and wrote down Victor's name and a couple of ideas on how to improve his sense of style.

* * *

Victor was able to walk past Daria's room without incident and dared to hope that he had dodged the awkward conversation.

Then he took one step into his room and found Daria sitting on his bed, waiting for him.

"Hey Victor." She said to him, her face unreadable, even with his years of experience in discerning emotion from her powerful mask.

"Oh, hi Daria." he replied awkwardly while walking into his own room like enemy territory, "How'd your night go?"

He hoped this would somehow be enough distraction to get away scot-free.

Daria actually seemed bemused while he sat down next to her, "I made three hundred bucks, then Quinn paid me to stop talking, there was a bidding war involved. Oh and she went home with Lawndale High's resident perv after her dates beat each other senseless and the cops showed up."

Victor laughed nervously, "Cool, now why don't..."

Daria cut him off with, "Now what was YOUR night like?"

Victor gave a nonchalant shrug, "Nothin much, just went to a friends house, heard Mystik Spiral play. Nothing big."

Daria's eyes narrowed, "You've omitted quite a bit."

"I didn't lie to you." Victor said back, freely admitting the censoring of his night.

"But, like leaving the house you haven't told me shit Victor." Daria replied coldly.

"Yeah," Victor stated flatly, "But yesterday morning the whole being ignored thing got to me more than usual, and I didn't see you around so I just... well... I bailed."

Daria sighed as her brother seemed to deflate after he stopped speaking.

"Victor," Daria said sadly, "I get that but I'd have rather of found out about you going to a friends place, AND a bar in the rough part of town from you personally and not a note and a word from Jane hours after the fact."

"I know," Victor replied feeling a bit ashamed at this, "But, well... You know how it is."

Daria sighed again, "Yeah, I know how it is."

She then did something surprising, she gave him a hug.

It only took Victor a second to realize this and he hugged her back until Daria began to pull away after a little bit.

She wasn't real big on physical contact, but the fact she did it at all was more than enough for him.

"At least Daria cares," Victor thought to himself as she gave him a reiteration of keeping her in the loop, "It's better than nothing at all."

He then wondered how his friends were coping with going back home.

* * *

Danny Moreno was passed out again in his bedroom and wouldn't wake up until three in the afternoon.

* * *

Link was able to sneak back in without any trouble, since his step-father was passed out on the couch with empty beer cans everywhere and his Mom wasn't anywhere to be found.

"She's either passed out in the bathroom or in bed." Link thought dismissively while navigating through the mess that was the Leingold house to his own personal space.

His bedroom was the only room in the entire rundown excuse of a house that saw regular cleaning, and each science poster and artifact and book was a testament to being fought for tooth and nail over the years from his father and now his stepfather.

His small bed never looked more inviting than it did now, but Link did have the presence of mind to make sure that all five locks on his bedroom door were nice and tight before sleeping off his first bender.

Link still wasn't sure if he should be doing this a whole lot, but when he was with the guys he just felt, _safe_.

But before he could think about it further, sleep claimed him.

* * *

"So Damien," Andrea Hebuca said to her little brother as they faced off in the Hebcua's conservative and drop dead normal looking living room, "How was your night?"

"Great!" Damien said back with a big grin that he knew would get on her nerves, "Why you ask?"

"Because it's going to be the last night you do that shit at your age." Andrea hissed back darkly, "Do you know how dangerous places like the Zon can be?"

Damien shrugged, "You do it all the time and you are only two years older than me. That doesn't make you that much more equipped than me."

Andrea's face narrowed and her eyes seemed to glow with hellfire. "Damien! Trust me, you don't know what you and your friends are playing with. You got lucky last night but luck doesn't hold forever."

For some reason Andrea seemed to be seeing something else as she spoke, "Just, just do your big sister a solid and don't muck around on Dega Street at night."

Damien just mouthed, "Hypocrite."

Andrea began to loose her handle on her temper, but the sudden sound of their parents car pulling in the driveway forced her to calm down.

"We'll finish this later." She hissed before they both faked being nice and happy and not having had spent their night out of the confines of the house at all.

Their parents having woken up that morning and assumed their kids were still sleeping in on the weekend had gone out grocery shopping without a care in the world.

They were none the wiser to anything amiss between Andrea and Damien that day.

Things in the Hebuca household worked better if the rents were kept in a state of Stepford oblivion.

Or so Andrea and Damien had both discovered through years of trial and error.


	15. Part 15

**Victor Morgendorffer (Pt. 15)**

The next evening after school found the Morgendorffers attempting another 'family meal' together.

Which, as usual consisted of frozen lasagna, Daria ignoring everyone in favor of a book, Quinn prattling away and being condescended to by their Mother, who was otherwise engaged in her legal documents.

Victor picked at his food and found himself thinking about that awkward and boring visit that the whole family had endured with their parents old friends, Doug and Susan something or other.

For some reason he couldn't remember their last names.

The only highlight had been seeing their toddler sneeze on Quinn, the freak-out was simply beautiful to watch.

However before Daria and him could get the mockery into full gear, their Mother had spoiled things by shushing them, and he thought he heard something about SATs.

Victor had dismissed it out of hand as something he had misheard, then on his way out when they were leaving he nearly tripped on a book called "My First S.A.T. Study Guide".

The thought of it still brought chills up and down his spine.

"Talk about not having a childhood." Victor muttered before taking another bite of his lasagna.

He glanced at Daria and Quinn and felt relief that he at least was being spared his parents sudden drive to get the Morgendorffer children prepped up for college.

"That's just because the college prep course that Marianne from the office found on short notice was for High School kids only." A nasty voice reminded him.

He batted it away just in time to hear his father say, "So Sport, any big plans this week?"

Victor shrugged while hiding his surprise at the sudden parental interest in his life, "Nothing really, probably just go to school and hang with the Deviants. The usual."

"The Deviants?" Jake asked while scratching his head.

"Aw hell," Victor thought while mentally face palming.

It was time for damage control.

"It's just what we call ourselves," He said quickly, "You know, our group name."

"Oh, you mean like Quinn and her friends in the Fashion Club!" Jake exclaimed happily.

Victor glanced around the table, Quinn and Helen were still in their own little worlds, Daria however was looking up from her book and giving him a slight half-smile.

"Well, we don't do 'Fashion." Victor said while putting fashion in air-quotes, "And we're not an official club or nothing. Just a group of friends surviving Junior High."

"Well, that's great Sport!" Jake replied while surprising his kid again by patting him on the back, "I just want you to be happy, you know that right?"

"Of course I do Dad," Victor replied, not sure where this was going, "I'm as happy as a clam."

"Before or after baking?" Daria snarked from nearby.

Victor chuckled and Jake joined him, but it was obvious he didn't know what the humor was in the joke.

His father seemed a bit wistful after he stopped as he added, "But I... um... Look the thing is..."

Victor raised an eyebrow as his father began to choke on whatever he had been planning on saying.

The Morgendorffer's only son began to count of the second before the 'man' of the house switched topics to something else.

"Oh look at this!" Jake exclaimed suddenly while pulling out the mail-order form of their latest cable package from the pile of mail next to him, "We've got the Pigskin Channel now!"

"Cool," Victor answered unenthusiastically, "But I usually watch other sports, remember?"

"Uh? Oh yeah right. But these aren't just any old football games. These are the best of the oldies! So you know you're going to see the game at it's finest."

Victor and Daria both glanced at each other as their father began to reminisce about the glory days of Football, now lost in his own little world.

Just like their other parental unit, but Victor noted that Quinn was still talking to her and gave her points for at least _trying_ to get Helen to engage with the real world.

"It's a shame that our Mom cares more about the approval of strangers than her own damn kids." he thought bitterly before glancing at his plate and found two thirds of it gone.

"I'm done eating." He said to no one and got up and left.

Daria decided a moment later that she was finished as well, but didn't bother saying anything but rose and followed her brother out of the room.

* * *

She found him sitting down in the living room and looking for the remote.

"Vic," Daria began while sitting down next to him, "Anything you want to vent about?"

"No." Victor replied curtly while digging under the couch cushions, looking for that damn remote.

Daria just stared at him impassively.

After finding the device in it's hiding place, he dug it out and turned the TV on and found a news program.

He glanced at Daria and gritted his teeth, "Everything's cool."

She just kept staring at him.

"...Ok I didn't even believe me." Victor admitted with a shrug.

"At least you fessed up," Daria replied, "Now spill."

Victor sighed, "It's just seeing the usual thing with our parents, for some reason it just got to me more than normal. That's all."

Now it was Daria's turn to sigh, but she managed to suppress it. But her voice certainty held the sentiment with her reply, "That happens to me sometimes as well, but I could never figure out a way to fix them."

"Well they are called veterinarians..." Victor joked.

"Not that kind of fixing," Daria replied with a hint of amusement, "Although it would cut down on the 'noises' from their bedroom."

Both Morgendorffer children shuddered at the mental scarring that Jake and Helen's vocal sex life had done to them from a young age.

Daria reached out and put her hand on top of Victor's and said, "But joking aside, at least you've got me, the big sister that exists to drive you nuts."

Victor gave a small smile, even if it was a sad one, "And you've got your annoying little brother. It's better than nothing, I guess."

"I hope it is for both our sakes." Daria replied and added, "Now are we really going to watch the news or find something sick and depraved on a better station to mock?"

Victor's smile became a little more happy, "I'm up for a Sarcastathon if you are Daria."

"Give me the remote."

Victor handed it over without a word and got comfortable, wondering what Daria would pick.

He just hoped it was something especially stupid, he was in the mood for working on his caustic wit.

Daria and American Television didn't disappoint him, not one bit.


	16. Part 16

**Victor Morgendorffer (Pt. 16)**

Ms. Martin was Glenfield Middle School's resident art teacher, with her oversized round glasses, pageboy bob, black sweaters and pants, and a good eye and real passion for the subject she taught.

In essence she was easily one of Victor's favorite teachers, and he had to admit that he didn't have a whole lot of talent for the subject.

But when he had signed up for it, he had thought, "Hey, why not take this as the 'bird course'? It'll be easier than shop class or something worse."

Time had proven him to be partially right, Ms. Martin did have a knack for coming up with interesting projects, but she wasn't one to let any pupil to breeze through anything.

Like for example...

"Mr. Morgendorffer," She said while towering over him, arms folded across her chest, "What are you making?"

Victor looked up at her and shrugged, "A tissue paper sculpture..."

She raised an eyebrow and looked at his attempt at the current project, each kid in class had to layer tissue paper onto two or three basic figurines and then depict them engaging in some sort of activity.

"Yes I see that," Ms. Martin said flatly, "However due to school policy I cannot allow you to have your subjects engaged in what I'm assuming is some sort of execution."

Victor gave her his best charming grin, "I'd like to think of it as a historical reenactment."

Ms. Martin's face twitched, but she couldn't hide her amusement at his cheek.

"I'll admit that you have found a clever way to simulate blood with the red paper, but you will have to change it."

"But I already took the head off of this one!" Victor protested, hoping that he could escape what was coming.

The teacher shook her head, "Easily remedied with a replacement, I do have a couple spares you know."

Victor sighed, knowing what this meant.

"More work." He thought darkly.

"If you need any ideas on a more 'rule friendly' assignment let me know." Ms. Martin said with a very Daria-esque half smile before moving on to the next student.

Victor looked down on his half completed project and sighed again at what was about to be lost.

"Sorry Mary," he told the figurine that he had managed to finish, "But no one appreciates the past anymore."

It was a pity since he had taken great care in making the doll look like a girl, he even had a little crown for her head. Granted the real Mary, Queen of Scots hadn't been wearing one during her execution, it was the symbol that mattered.

"Oh well, I guess I'll do the surfer thing instead." Victor said to himself bitterly and heard a girl laugh from nearby.

He looked up and couldn't resist a small smile, she was one of the few black students in Glenfield, it was a rare day that she didn't wear something yellow, and her hair was put back in a ponytail.

"I think your friends are getting the same treatment." The girl said to him and pointed at the distant table where the two other Deviants in the room was seated.

Once more Victor cursed the seating chart and watched as Ms. Martin once more had to remind her students that the projects in her class had to conform to school rules.

No violence, no sexual content, and of course...

"Nothing involving drugs," She said to Danny Moreno as she glanced at his figurines, who were obviously snorting _something_ off of the base they were imbedded in.

"Would you believe us if we said they were just cleaning the floor with their noses?" Damien joked.

"No," Ms. Martin said a snap of her fingers, "Remember I was once young too."

Both boys snickered and the teacher just shook her head and repeated that they would need to change their 'group' project or else fail the assignment before walking back to her desk.

The girl laughed and shook her head, "Did you guys do this on purpose?"

"Course we did," Victor told her while leaning back in his chair a bit and, putting his hands behind his head and rested comfortably, "It was worth a shot."

She laughed again, "Ever since you four became friends this place has become a lot more interesting."

"We aim to please."

"So what are you guys going to do next?"

Victor shrugged, "Dunno, we seem to be wingin' it."

She smiled wistfully, "Wish I could be more like that."

"It's easy," Victor informed her, "You just do your own thing and let all the BS just roll right off your shoulders."

For some reason that made her face fall, "I couldn't get away with it, my parents expect me and my sibs to be the perfect little black kids and there's no way around that."

Victor was surprised at the venom in her voice.

"...You got any major plans this weekend?" He found himself asking.

Rachel shrugged, "Nothing at the moment, but I'm sure my parents will find something. They usually do."

"Well if you can bail, why not hang out with us deviants? We could use a better class of company after all..."

She laughed, "I think I might take you up on that Victor."

"Cool," Victor replied before there was a yelp from nearby.

Everyone in the room turned to the corner of the room where the accident prone Eddy was sucking on one of his fingers.

"Uh... The pipe cleaner got my finger." He said with an embarrassed blush.

"How manly of you." Victor muttered.

The girl laughed again and Victor found himself realizing that he didn't remember what her name was.

So he decided to take Ms. Martin up on her offer to linger after class just to ask that one question.

"Oh, you mean Ms. Landon?" Ms. Martin said with no small amount of surprise, "Ah yes, little Rachel. She's a sweet girl, and a good student as well."

Victor nodded, "Cool..."

He trailed off when he noticed Ms. Martin giving him an appraising look and couldn't resist asking, "What?!"

She just made a sound in her throat and replied, "Nothing, now move along, you'll be late for your next class."

It was only after Victor had left that Ms. Martin allowed herself to chuckle and said, "Ah, to be young again. They'll be dating soon enough. All fire and passion until it flames out... The folly of that age."

Ms. Martin then found herself in memory lane until the first students of her next class began to filter in.

* * *

"So why were you and Rachel Landon flirting?" Damien asked innocently during lunch.

While Victor began gagging on his meat substitute, Link exclaimed, "What?!"

Danny did the more practical thing, he slapped his hand hard on Victor's back, causing the (even more) Lethal food to dislodge from his esophagus.

"Easy man, chew your food." Danny joked while Victor wheezed precious air back into his lungs.

Once he was sorted, Victor found Damien still waiting for his answer.

"We weren't flirting," Victor informed him curtly, "She asked me a question and I gave her an answer, then we talked for like a minute. Then I invited her to tag along with us, if she could get away from her parents."

The other three snorted.

"Like that'll ever happen!" Danny said with a dark chuckle.

Victor's confusion was easily read, so Damien elaborated the situation for him.

"The Landons are 'new money', and they're HUGE social climbers, so their kids have to do everything right to make the family look good for the old money set that live in the Crewe Neck. Ya know?"

Victor winced, "That sucks, think we could give her a proper influence?"

Damien chuckled, "We could, but she'd have to escape the cage first, not going to happen."

Victor sighed, "Damn, that poor girl..."

All three boys at the table exchanged knowing looks.

"What was that for?" Victor asked clearly confused.

"Oh, nothing Vic." Link assured him with a grin, "Nothing at all."

Victor didn't believe that at all, but he let it slide since he couldn't for the life of him puzzle it out.

* * *

As the instructor for this pointless College Prep course prattled on about the basics of taking a _freaking test_ Daria was pretty sure that she wasn't the only one who's mind was wandering.

In fact a quick glance at Jane revealed that she was at least in good company on that score.

"I'll ask her what she pictures college to be later." Daria noted to herself, still surprised that Jane had even bothered to sign up for the course since it didn't seem like something she'd do willing.

It wasn't as if she herself was doing this of her own free will, so why was Jane?

Daria decided to ask her later.

Meanwhile she let her eyes lose focus and her imagination go wild...

* * *

_Daria was walking in the middle of a vague college campus beside a man who was attractive in a tweedy sort of way, and his turtleneck sweater certainly didn't take away from his appeal either.  
_

_He was advising her to transfer to graduate school, even though she was just one week into college experience, not to be a professional student but to teach, and in Paris to boot!  
_

_She began to feel honored and accept the offer.  
_

_Then he dropped the bombshell, that he was planning to use her dorm to conduct affairs with much more attractive undergraduates._

* * *

"How come even in my fantasies everyone's a jerk?" Daria muttered to herself in the real world.

She had thought she hadn't nice and quiet, but apparently it attracted the attention of the instructor since he stopped in mid-lecture and began looking around the room for whomever had spoken.

Daria sighed and just slumped in her seat, wanting the stupid extra class to be over with already.


	17. Part 17

**Victor Morgendorffer (Pt. 17)**

It was dinner time once more in the House of Morgendorffer.

"At least it's not lasagna," Victor told himself with a small amount of relief as he nibbled at the meatloaf on his plate.

He kept an ear open on the conversation, which was being dominated by Quinn, chirping away like a parrot about her and Daria's time in the college prep course.

Then she mentioned that she and Daria would have to go visit a college of their choosing as part of the course.

"Well there go my plans for the weekend." Victor muttered to himself, not sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

Daria began to quietly ask what those plans were when she was interrupted by Helen declaring that the family would be going to Middleton.

Victor raised an eyebrow at that.

"It'll be great visiting the old alma mater." Jake said, at least paying attention to the conversation for once.

"Like your old military school?" Victor reminded him.

"Victor..." Helen groaned, dreading the blow up.

A second later Jake registered what his son had suggested and he went from obliviously happy to unstable.

"Oh dear _God_ no!" Jake yelled in horror, "No child of mine is going anywhere _near_ that hellhole!"

"Wait!" Quinn exclaimed, "Let me remind you that _we_ get to pick the college, not you guys."

"True," Helen conceded, "But _we_ are the ones with the car. So, we get to pick."

Quinn began to pout.

"No buts Quinn," Helen informed her finality, "We're going to Middleton and that's final."

"Maybe we should suggest going to their old nursery school next." Daria teased to her brother quietly.

Victor smiled and nodded his head, remembering someone telling him that Middleton was a big party school.

"I'll bet _someone_ over there would hook a brother up." Victor thought with glee.

The weekend was suddenly looking up.

* * *

After dinner Victor had gone into Daria's room to watch Sick, Sad World with her when a surprise guest had turned up that made his stomach do belly flops.

Jane Lane.

"Pity I missed the food." Jane had informed them with an exaggerated sniff.

"You are welcome to anything in the fridge." Victor said before he could stop himself.

There was a brief moment of absolute and total humiliation.

"Cool." Jane replied with a flash of her pearly whites.

Suddenly the world was his oyster.

Daria just shook her head before switching on the tube.

A few minutes in though there was a knock at the door and the whine of Quinn on the other end.

"Ugh! _Victor!_ Phone!"

Victor grunted before getting off of the bed, glad that his pants were baggy enough to hide the effect that Jane being so close was having on him.

He went to the door and opened it and saw his other sister in all of her glory.

"Make it quick Vic," Quinn said with a sniff, "I'm waiting for an important call from the Fashion Club."

Victor just took the phone from her hands and grunted out, "Whatever." and took a step back before closing the door.

"Hello?"

"Hey Victor." a girls voice came from the other end.

"Rachel?"

"Yeah it's me."

"How'd you get this number?"

"The yellow pages. Look I'm going to have to take a raincheck on the weekend thing."

"Why?" Victor asked, suspecting that his friends were right and that she'd never get out of the cage.

"My sister's in some prep course and now we're all getting dragged to Crestmore for some dumb tour."

"Heh, that's funny." Victor laughed.

"Why?"

"Cus that's happening to me too."

"Cool! So I'll see you there?"

"Nope," Victor told her sadly, "I'll be at Middleton."

"Ouch! That bites."

Victor shrugged, "Not really, place like that who knows what I'll find."

"Now I'm envying you." Rachel Landon informed him.

"At least someone does." Victor replied gratefully, "Mind swapping horror stories next week?"

"Not at all, _Vic_."

For some reason Victor wasn't bothered by her calling him that and said, "Ok then... uh..."

Rachel just giggled and said, "I think you want to say, bye for now."

Then she hung up before he could.

Victor shook his head in surprise before hanging up the phone and then turned to see Daria and Jane facing the TV, seemingly unaware of the one-sided conversation they had overheard.

He shrugged and sat the phone down on Daria's desk before moving back to his spot on the bed.

"Who was that?" Daria asked him.

"No one," Victor began before amending it with, "Just someone I talked to in class today."

"Sounded like a girl." Jane said with a sly grin, "Friend of yours?"

"No!" Victor replied quickly, "Just someone I met. Today."

"Sure. Whatev." Jane answered while her eyes seemed to hold forbidden knowledge of something beyond his keen.

Things might have gotten weirder for poor Victor, but Quinn did the merciful thing by pounding on Daria's bedroom door a couple seconds later, wanting the phone back for her call.


	18. Part 18

**Victor Morgendorffer (Pt. 18)**

"Fancy buildings for a party school." Victor commented quietly as he and Daria made the tail end of the Morgendorffer's little group as they strolled the main campus of Middleton University.

It had kind of sucked knowing through the week that he'd be spending Saturday here and the rest of the night back on the road, having had to get up much earlier in the morning than was reasonable on the weekend.

"This had better be worth it." Victor had said to Daria during the car trip.

"It won't be." She had told him.

So far with a scary lack of a tour guide and their parents starting to reminisce about their own college days, Victor was starting to get worried.

His parents were in dorky casual clothes, his father had a g-damn _fanny pack_ for fuck's sake!

"To be honest I'm surprised that Mom was able to get away from the office to do this." Daria said to him even while their father called out to a student to toss the 'disk' his way.

"Get a life old man!" The college dudebro yelled back at him, tossing the Frisbee at his friend to catch instead.

Victor wondered if his father understood the hypocrisy of calling the kid a 'college punk' when he had just been praising his old college lifestyle.

"Probably not." Victor told himself just as a rather nice looking redish haired girl approached them.

Hi, are you the Morgendorffers?" She asked politely, "I'm your tour guide, Heather. Welcome to Middleton."

"Hey, Heather. What's up?" Jake replied, clearly trying to be cool.

"Uh... Let's just get started, kay?" Heather said hesitantly before leading them away from the quad.

Victor only paid half attention as she began to tell them the history of Middleton, it didn't really matter much.

"Especially since I won't be going to this place." Victor decided, not liking what he had seen and read so far.

As their father was hit by a water balloon, Victor whispered, "Bet you five bucks he blows a gasket."

"No sucker bets." Daria said back just as their father began to rant about killing college scum.

Their mother began to look worried and pointed at the building quickly and clearly said the first thing that came to mind.

"Jake, honey, didn't that balloon just come out of your old dorm window?"

"Hey, yeah!" Jake exclaimed, bad mood forgotten completely.

Heather stood silent watching this unfold like a train wreck.

"Honey this is just the beginning." Victor thought as he memorized the look on her face for later reference. It was priceless.

Then to the tour guide's obvious amazement their parents decided to take off, leaving their underage kids to fend for themselves.

"This is so illegal." Heather muttered under her breath.

"Yeah," Victor spoke up, surprising everyone, "But our Mom's a lawyer, if caught she can get us all off without anything on our records."

That made Heather smile.

Then Quinn asked where fraternity row was.

"Uh, don't you mean sorority row?" Heather asked, tilting her head to take in the pink princess.

"No," Daria informed her, "Quinn knows what she's doing."

"Oh what the hell," Heather muttered before giving Quinn the address and watched her run off.

"She's God's problem now." Heather informed them while taking a pack of cigarettes out and lit one up.

"Mind if I bum one of those?" Victor asked her, holding out his hand.

Heather started to hand him on due to instinct but stopped herself after a second and seemed a bit confused by it.

"Uh...?"

"My brother is just joking." Daria stated, giving him the evil eye.

"Of course I am Daria," Victor replied, "I prefer pot."

That made Heather laugh and she said, "You guys are on the level, come on. Let's just go hang out at my pad, it's better than being outside. It's hotter than holy hell out here."

"You got a TV with cable?" Daria asked as they began to follow her.

"How else would I get to watch Sick, Sad World?" Heather answered back without missing a beat.

"This chick rules." Victor thought to himself, and then briefly wondered what Rachel was putting up with at Crestmore.

* * *

The tour guide was named Paul Alexander Parker IV and he was in a freaking white polo shirt and khakis and stunk of old money and having a steel rod surgically implanted in his rectum.

"I wonder if Dad will propose now or when the tour ends." Rachel wondered to herself, since her father Andrew Landon was palling around with the kid as if they were old chums.

"Mom's not much better though." Rachel thought darkly as Michele Landon was chatting away happily with Jodie about how great this place would be for her, once she was in college of course.

"And this is the infamous Statue of the Three Lies." Paul informed them as they reached a statue of some fat old white guy from the colonial era, "Now who can tell me why it's called that?"

Rachel decided that some attention was in order and spoke up.

"Because that isn't the actual founder of the school, the founding date is wrong, and he didn't actually found the school. The Colony of Massachusetts did."

"Very good." Paul replied with a grin before informing them of a 'student' tradition of rubbing the statue's shiny left toe for luck.

Rachel already knew this was just a prank that tour guides at Crestmore pulled to weed out those in the know and those who were not.

While her parents and Jodie followed his ploy like sheep, Rachel just stood off to the side.

Paul spotted her and indicated his head towards the statue, wanting her to join in the rubbing.

She just shook her head no and mouthed, "I'm good."

Paul gave her a big grin and a thumbs up.

"Maybe this place isn't so bad after all." Rachel mused to herself.


	19. Part 19

**Victor Morgendorffer (Pt. 19)**

In a dorm room with some decent knickknacks, but the otherwise bland generic look of all dorm rooms, Victor found himself the only male in a room full of some pretty good looking girls.

He was enjoying every moment of it.

"And they do all have similar interests to mine." He reassured himself as they all watched SSW on a small cheap TV set.

Granted it was the old episode about the British Royal Family, again.

But it was still good.

"So," Daria stated flatly as soon as a commercial came on, "This is college."

The girls laughed.

"Yeah pretty much," Heather said with a wave around the room, "But there's also the crappy part-time jobs and begging your parents for more cash. You haven't gotten that experience yet."

"And I hope to avoid that as long as humanely possible." Victor spoke up.

Heather smirked, "Stick to your guns as long as possible kid. Trust me on that one."

Victor managed to laugh even as he blushed.

The petite red head leaned over to another girl in ball cap and whispered something, but Victor did hear the word 'Cute'.

That made him turn another shade of red, but he added a couple points to his ego boost.

Then there was a knock at the door.

"What now?" Heather groaned even as she got up to answer it.

There was some murmuring and she shut the door and sauntered back and flopped on the floor with a manila envelope and opened it.

"What's that?" Victor asked out of idle curiosity.

"My psych term paper." Heather said without missing a beat, "Finally. Nobody respects deadlines anymore."

Daria leaned over and got a good look at it.

"Don't tell me you _paid_ someone to write this."

Heather winced, "Yeah, but it was all I could get on short notice."

"How much you shell out?"

"Fifty bucks."

Daria then said, "For ten I could fix it for you."

"Is it that bad?" Heather asked even as she handed it over.  
"Well," Daria replied while scanning it, "Right off the bat I can say that the first paragraph has _nothing_ to do with psychiatry."

Heather groaned, "Ugh."

Then as a couple of the other girls began to ask Daria if she knew about things like the English Civil War and Renaissance painting.

Victor stifled a hearty chuckle at his elder sister's mercenary ways and took this as his cue to leave.

He wanted a better look around campus by himself.

* * *

It hadn't taken him more than going back down a couple flights of stairs to the ground level before he caught the ever familiar scent of weed.

"Mother's milk." Victor said to himself with a sigh and a grin.

He followed it down a stairwell and found himself on the second floor, the entire area stunk of it.

"I guess I found stoner central." Victor commented to himself.

"You sure have kid." A voice emerged from a corner.

Victor turned around to find himself looking at a guy cameo pants, flip flops, a ratty and tattered blue shirt, his blond hair twisted into dreadlocks, and blue eyes quite blazed.

"Cool." Victor replied casually.

The guy then seemed surprised about something, "Aren't you a little young to be here?"

"I ditched the official tour." Victor answered.

The dude smiled slightly, "A rebel, sounds like me at your age."

Victor chuckled, "So about this being... you know..."

The dude's grin grew a bit bigger, "It's one of those places where we can get fucked up and be left alone as long as we leave them alone. You know?"

Victor decided that it was safe to risk it and just took out a small baggie he had in his pants pocket, he had a couple rolled up joints and a lighter in it.

"I don't have much on me," Victor answered honestly, "But I don't want to smoke alone."

"You trust me?" The dude replied with faux-surprise.

"You seem cool."

"Cool kid," The dude replied happily, putting an arm around Victor and leading him to one of the doors and unlocked it, "The names Kyle by the way."

"I'm Victor."

Victor stepped in with Kyle and found that the only different between Kyle's dorm and Heather's were the knickknacks.

Kyle had a lot more of them, and some of them were surprisingly high dollar.

Kyle shut the door behind them and went for a dresser and opened the top drawer, it's contents were eye-popping.

While it did contain some clothes on one side, the other half of the drawer was dominated by a massive brick of pot, and a baggie filled with a wide variety of pills and vials of various powders.

Kyle ignored this and grabbed a roach from a small bag in the drawer and shut it.

He then got one look at Victor's face and laughed, "Yeah, I'm kind of the resident dealer."

He then thought that over and said, "You won't tell nobody, right?"

"Of course I won't," Victor answered honestly, and then he thought of something, "You wouldn't happen to sell acid. Would you?"

Kyle winced, "I sold the last of it to a blond chick with a huge rack about two hours ago."

"Damn." Victor replied even as he pulled out a joint and his lighter and lit it up and let Kyle have first honors.

Kyle took a hit and went, "This is good shit, where'd you get it?"

"I live in Lawndale." Victor answered even as he sat down on the couch to get comfortable.

Kyle smirked, "Oh, you know the Burns clan then."

Victor nodded and asked how he knew them.

Kyle chuckled, "Kid, in my business the word does spread around."

He then passed the joint to Victor after getting another hit and said as Victor toked up, "But if you are interested in hallucinogens like that, I think there's a dude in Oakwood that occasionally carries stuff like that."

Victor exhaled, blowing smoke rings, "Really?"

Kyle nodded, "God's honest truth kid.

Victor then passed him the joint and asked him to tell him more.

* * *

"God this sucks." Danny Moreno complained to Link as they sat on the couch in the Moreno's house, tv on but ignored, nothing was on and they were bored out of their minds.

"I didn't think I'd miss anyone, and then I get three friends and I can't even handle one Saturday with one of them out of town and the other one sick." Link said, partially to himself.

Danny grunted, "Yeah, me too."

Link then flipped the channels a bit, nothing stood out.

"Where is your brother anyway?" Link asked.

Danny shrugged, "Some girl's place."

"Damn," Link grunted back, "I was hoping he could take us somewhere."

"Where?"

"Anywhere but in boredomsville." Link replied.

"True that."

Link wished that he hadn't gone dry, but the Friday night before Victor had to leave the three of them had gotten together and smoked the last of his and Danny's stashes, intending to buy more during the weekend.

"But the ride got distracted by some chick." Link thought darkly.

Then an idea came to him.

"Hey Danny," Link said in a rush.

"What?"

Link gave him a huge grin, "Dose your brother keep his stash in the house?"

Danny began to smile darkly, "Yes. Yes he does."

Link bounded up from the couch.

Danny grabbed his arm, "We can't swipe too much, otherwise he'll notice."

Link nodded curtly, "Maybe enough for a joint or two then. I'm not greedy. Just fucking bored."

Danny chuckled even as the two of them made a beeline for Jesse's room.

"You know Vic would probably want us to do some sort of spiritual thing." Danny stated.

Link shrugged, "Yeah, but he's the Shaman amongst us. I'm not really sold on that sort of thing."

Link then asked, "Are you?"

Danny shrugged, "Dunno to be honest. I like keeping my options open though."

It was Link's turn to shrug, "Too each their own. Now, where does your big bro keep his weed?"

Danny was more than happy to show him.


	20. Part 20

**Victor Morgendorffer (Pt. 20)**

Victor giggled slightly as an old He-Man cartoon played on Kyle's TV, the twenty-something and the thirteen-almost-fourteen year old were sitting on the couch, Victor's joint long since smoked, so Kyle had loaded up a green plastic bong and they had taken big hits from it.

"So kid," Kyle slurred as Skeletor got his ass kicked once more, "I just thought of something..."

"That's a miracle considering..." Victor said before laughing again, pointing at the bong on what passed for a coffee table.

"True dat." Kyle slurred.

"So what's in your noodle?"

Kyle sat quiet for a moment before muttering, "I forgot."

That made Victor cackle.

Then there was a jangle of keys outside and a second later a huge bulky bloke with a fucked up nose stomped into the room, and he looked kind of pissed.

Kyle looked up and slurred, "Dude, what happened to you?"

The guy growled, kicking off his shoes like he wanted to beat them up, "Tommy Sherman got stood up, man!"

"Ouch." Kyle said with some sympathy and then offered, "Come smoke a bowl with us, man."

Victor went into observation mood, wondering what sort of random stroke of luck would put a cool guy like Kyle in a dorm with a self-absorbed jock-type like this clown.

However Tommy Sherman flopped onto the couch next to them and took the bong gratefully, still muttering about some chick that had promised to put out but had bailed on the actual putting out, by simply not showing up.

After taking a hit, Tommy Sherman took notice of the stranger in the room and said, "You know this kid?"

Kyle grunted, "He bailed on some tour group."

Tommy Sherman raised an eyebrow, "And you just brought him here and got him high?! Dude, even Tommy Sherman knows that's a bad idea, man."

"Hey," Victor slurred to defend his new bud, "I brought my own pot. I just didn't want to smoke alone."

Tommy Sherman shrugged, "Whatever kid, but for your sake Tommy Sherman hopes that you've got a way to cover up the smell and shit when you go back to the dumb tour shit."

Victor needed a minute to absorb this.

"Aw hell!" Victor moaned, "I forgot about that part."

Kyle chuckled, "Don't worry kid, you can borrow my mouthwash and bug spray."

"What's with the bug spray?" Tommy Sherman asked as he lit up the bong again.

Kyle grinned, "So he can claim that frat guys doused him as a prank."

Victor and Tommy both laughed at that, though Tommy Sherman cut his laughter short by taking a hit from the bong.

While he did this, Kyle was quietly thankful that his normally unbearable roommate had been desperate enough to forget his bad mood that he dropped the jackass act.

"Nor did he take it out on the kid." A voice whispered to Kyle, and he had to suppress a shudder.

He briefly wondered if getting high with Victor might have been a bad move on his part, but he shrugged it off.

They'd chat some more, exchange numbers, help the kid cover it up, and he'd be on his way.

"And everything will be alright." Kyle sang to himself softly, a refrain from a song that he liked.

But he couldn't remember what the song _was_ at the moment, or who sang it for that matter.

For some reason.

* * *

Jake Morgendorffer was now regretting taking this trip to Middleton.

Between seeing these college punks act like jackasses and getting the actual modern day costs of college from the Bursar, he had felt the stirrings of a panic attack coming on.

But as he had left the Bursar's Office he had been thinking, "Well I'll just find Helen and the kids and we can..."

Then he had stopped in mid-step on the sidewalk, his face going ashen as a fact he had overlooked hit him full force.

_"Oh my GOD!"_ Jake realized with sudden terror, _"Helen and I left our children with the tour guide when we went to see my old dorm room. They could be anywhere on campus!"_

He had sudden flashes of some of the things he and Helen had done, and a few things he had seen happening in plain sight in the middle of the day in the present.

At that point Jake went from motionless and into a full-blown sprint, determined to find Helen and his kids and get the hell away from Middleton University before they all got killed or turned into junkies or something worse.

As he ran like he was fleeting a hoard of zombies, and bumping into people left and right, Daria was writing up term papers for a nominal fee, Quinn was in a frat house teaching the brothers a drinking game, and Victor was getting high and watching cartoons with a drug dealer and the biggest asshole on the Middleton Peccadillos.


	21. Part 21

**Victor Morgendorffer (Pt. 21)**

Daria noted with a small hint of pride that there had been a line almost out the door in Heather's dorm room of her fellow brain-dead (or perhaps just lazy) students wanting/needing help with their essays and papers.

And all of them willing to pony up, just to cut corners.

As she explained to the last girl that getting advice from your boyfriend on how to write a literary essay on 'Sons and Lovers', either during make out sessions or during bad breakups was just a bad idea.

"Cool!" The girl cheered while forking over her payment for advice on restructuring her thesis.

As she bounded out the door, Heather chuckled from the couch, "You have a talent for dealing with the brain-dead."

Daria began to reply before she noticed something, they were short a person in the room.

"Uh Heather." Daria spoke up with worry.

"What?"

"Have you seen my brother?"

Heather bolted up from her prone position on the couch, looking around hurriedly.

"Uh," Heather mumbled with, "I saw him when you were explaining how to fix my paper... And..."

She trailed off.

Then in unison the two of them went, "Aw hell!"

Daria took a deep breath while Heather began to get very, very nervous.

The redhead began saying to herself, "Ok, if I was a thirteen year old boy at MU, where would I be..." She snapped her fingers, "Sorority Row!"

"No." Daria stated flatly as Heather began to take a step towards the door.

She stopped and went, "Huh?"

Daria gritted her teeth and asked, "Who are the nearest potheads slash dealers within the range of this particular dorm?"

Heather began to rattle off a few names, but Daria held up a hand and said, "Let's just go and meet them, Vic won't be too hard to spot."

Heather nodded and said, "I'll grab some patchouli, for us. Since without it _we_ will reek of the ganga by the end of this."

"Gotcha."

* * *

Under the influence of some damn good sticky icky, Victor was enjoying his time at Middleton U with his new friends, Tommy Sherman, and Kyle.

As a Dragonball Z cartoon began to air, the three of them had already been talking and toking up for what felt like hours.

"...And when Tommy Sherman got to this hellhole, thinkin' that he was going to be QB just like at LawnHELL High, guess what?"

"What, man?" Victor asked, half-dazed and wondering what Kyle's last name was, if he had known it already and forgot or never asked or something.

Or something.

Tommy Sherman coughed for a minute before saying, "Tommy Sherman was stuffed into the defensive line without so much as a... as a..."

"By-you-leave?" Kyle supplied.

"Yeah, that word. Or whatev."

"That sucks, dude." Victor answered with some sincerity, after all the big lug still seemed disappointed by it.

Tommy Sherman just grunted, "Thanks kid. But at least Tommy Sherman is still playing football. 'Bout the only thing that he's good at."

The big lug sighed again, "If it wasn't for that tutoring crap, _I'd_ have flunked already. Football scholarship or not."

Victor and Kyle both took that in, and Kyle said the first thing that came to mind.

"Dude... That's the first time you spoke in first person since I've known you."

"Huh?" Tommy Sherman looked at his roommate, like he was suddenly speaking in Han-era Chinese.

"Nevermind." Kyle drawled before grabbing the bong and loading it up again for another hit.

"Dude..." Victor drawled, "Aren't you high enough yet?"

"Never enough, kid." Kyle replied nonchalantly, even as he prepared to light it up.

Then there were two loud raps at the door.

"Fuck!" Kyle snapped, and much more quickly than Victor had expected from him.

"Who is it?" Kyle yelled even as he went for the door, Tommy Sherman grabbed the bong and slid it under the coffee table on the off-chance that it was the campus fuzz.

"It's me, Heather." A now familiar voice emerged as Kyle reached the door.

Victor began to wonder if his sister was with her, and then Heather added, "Oh, and a friend."

Victor sighed and muttered while rising from the couch, "I guess that's my cue."

Kyle opened the door to see one of his semi-regulars in the doorway with some chick in an ugly coat.

Then his eyes focused on the girl, and something about her hair rattled something in his head.

"Are you related to Vic, by an chance?" Kyle asked even as Victor stepped up at his side.

Daria's nostrils flared, and then her eyes narrowed.

Victor suppressed a blanch, "Relax Daria, I'll just douse myself in bug spray and say it was a prank. No one's gotta know. _Right?"_

Daria decided to set her little brother's logic to the side and began to give him a piece of her mind.

"Victor goddammit!" She said with real anger in her tone, "I can't believe that you'd-! I mean...!"

There was the sound of the phone ringing in the distance, and Tommy Sherman answering it.

"Hey, Dara, relax..." Kyle began to say, but a fiery glare from the bespeckled girl shut him right up.

Before Daria could put her anger into something more coherent, Victor spoke up to head her off at the pace.

"Daria," he said calmly but flatly, "Maybe this wasn't one of my better decisions but... I got bored."

The death gaze she gave him for that was his first clue that he said the wrong thing.

But as Daria opened her mouth to really let loose, she was interrupted by Tommy Sherman yelling, "Hey! The Sigmas just picked a new Keg Queen, cute redhead from the sound of it. Frat-row wide party. Now!"

Both Kyle and Heather's eyes lit up.

"Wow!" Kyle exclaimed, "I didn't think they'd get one so quick after Hayley biffed it on the Highway.

"It had better not be Ursula..." Heather muttered, until something clicked in her head and she drew a deep breath and said with worry, "Uh, Tommy?"

"Yeah?" Tommy Sherman said even as he tried to put his shoes on, but was slightly too high to pull it off.

"Did you say, a cute redhead?"

"Yeah, why?"

Victor, Heather, and Daria had matching looks of horror on their faces.

"No way!" Victor hissed, wide-eyed with disbelief.

"...It's Quinn." Daria said, face-palming, "Of course it's her that's Queen of the drunks."

"This is bad." Heather moaned, "I mean, is she even legal to drive?"

"Ha!" Victor snorted, "She's not even fifteen yet, she doesn't even have a learner's permit."

Those words got through everyone's heads in that room.

Even Tommy Sherman.

"We've gotta stop this, now!" Daria snapped and began to rush out, but then stopped and was forced to ask, "Uh, where are the frats?"

Heather replied, "I'll take you, but first we need cover-up. We all smell like a Moroccan drug den."

And so the trip to Middleton Fraternity Row was delayed by a few minutes since everyone used Heather's and later Kyle's stash of patchouli and bug spray to mask the smell of pot.

* * *

By the time they got to the Sigma's frat house, they discovered that campus security had already arrived, looking irate as hell at two middle-aged geezers in unfashionable clothes.

Off to the side were a couple dumb-looking frat brothers, and Quinn Morgendorffer in some ridiculous getup, chatting away happily.

As the group got closer, Victor and Daria recognized their parents, and the cops were giving them quite the bollocking.

"...You let three underage kids. Your own kids no less! Wander around the campus without any supervision?!" the guard almost yelled in disbelief.

"Uh..." Jake Morgendorffer muttered, firmly red-faced with humiliation.

Helen managed to confess, in a whisper, that they didn't know where their other two kids were.

Victor smirked, "My cue."

Then yelled, "Hey! We're right here."

As Victor stepped forward with Daria, he noticed that Kyle and Tommy Sherman were slinking back a bit, eyeing the cops with a wary eye.

Heather on the other hand was right behind them.

Helen rounded on them with a look of relief, and a wince as she caught their scent.

"Kids!" She exclaimed, "Thank goodness you made it to us safe." and then her face hardened and she added to Daria, "But as the eldest I hold you partially to blame for wandering off."

Daria's face held a grin as she replied, "But me and Victor were with the tour guide this entire time."

"Hi!" Heather added loudly with a big theatrical wave.

Helen then sniffed, "And the smell?"

Victor grunted darkly, "Some assholes doused us with bug spray. Big time."

Helen struggled to find a means to shift some blame somewhere other than herself, but the lead officer was clearly sick of her.

"Madam," He said with sneer, "We have strict rules about minors at fraternity parties. I'm afraid I'm going to have to escort you all off the campus - _immediately_!"

"But..." Helen stuttered.

The cop just threatened to use the cuffs, it was enough to shut her up.

Jake just sighed and put a hand on her shoulder, and asked the officer if they'd at least delay that so their kids could get a shower and a change of clothes.

"But Jake we didn't bring anything like that..." Helen began to say, but was cut off again (to her annoyance).

"We'll charge you some things from the signature store." The cop informed them curtly.

Victor was pretty sure that he'd just wear the Middleton gear once, and then most likely never again.

* * *

The car ride home was a very quiet affair, not even Quinn was bothering to fill the silent voice with pointless chatter.

Helen was still chewing on her raw nerve, and her annoyance at not being able to vent her spleen.

Daria was sitting pretty with extra spending money, and having one-upped her mother.

But every time she set sight on her brother, in matching blue and orange Middleton colors, in the form of a shirt and a pair of overpriced jeans, she longed to tell him off on doing something so stupid as seeking out a dealer he knew nothing about, just to get high.

Victor on the other hand still had a good buzz going, and with a fresh bag of pot courtesy of his new pal Kyle Sanderson, he was good for the next few days.

But driving the Morgendorffer's still new(ish) blue Lexus, Jake Morgendorffer was sick with worry.

He had gotten a closer look at Victor than Helen had, and he had used the bug spray trick before with his old man.

"I've got to talk to him," Jake thought for the millionth time, "But every time I think of something it just sounds like my old man. That bastard!"

And each time he started to get angry, he was forced to think of something else to avoid any accidents on the road.

By the time they got back to Lawndale, he still didn't have any idea what to do.


	22. Part 22

**Victor Morgendorffer (Pt. 22)**

It wasn't until Monday that Victor managed to reconnect with the Deviants, but when he did the stories were worth listening too.

In Glenfield's main foyer they had taken over a corner table, a bit apart from the rest of the seating and away from the snack machines and the lines of their fellow students getting an early morning sugar fix.

"So basically you and Link were too high to answer the phone." Victor concluded once they reach the part of the story where they got into Jesse's stash, he then laughed and shook his head, "Dudes, the crap that he laces his weed with would make Keith Richards beg for mercy."

"We know that now..." Danny groaned while rubbing his eyes, "I'll never see the color 'blue' the same way again."

"...I'd rather not know what that means."

"You and me both Damien."

Link stayed quiet and seemed to be making a study of his early morning jelly donut from the vending machine as if it held some sacred mystery.

Damien watched this through the fringe of his hair and murmured quietly, "You think he's still feeling it?"

Danny and Victor both shrugged.

And a second later a familiar voice said, "Hey Victor! Glad to see you survived Middleton."

"And you got out of Crestmore without turning into a snob." Victor answered with a slight grin as Rachel, "I'm surprised that the programing didn't take."

"They save that for when you are actually enrolled." She replied while taking the only available seat left, which coincidentally was facing Victor.

"That's great, I guess..." Victor muttered, wondering why he felt flushed all of a sudden.

Rachel smiled, and Victor instinctively fidgeted in his seat, trying to adjust a growing problem, hoping that no one noticed.

"Well if nothing else I do plan on going to Crestmore, whatever Jodie decides." Rachel informed them, "Granted it isn't a Benetton Ad by any means, but they actually teach things there and the library alone is worth every penny of my parents money."

"That sounds familiar..." Victor thought, even as Rachel asked his friends how they had spent their weekend without their 'leader'.

"Hey!" Link protested, his voice a bit high-pitched, "Who elected Victor our King?"

"The Purple Bunny that was trying to eat your brain," Danny commented, "Or whatever it was that you were yelling about at 2 am, or was it six?"

Link shuddered, "Dude, don't remind me."

Rachel stared at them for a moment before saying, "...Ok, moving on with no more questions."

"I was sick with a flu bug all weekend." Damien said to keep things from falling into an awkward silence.

Victor suspected that it was his turn to speak, so he shrugged, "Well the tour fell apart in the first five minutes when my parents bailed to see their old dorm room. Quinn then ran off to see the frats, Daria found out that college kids will spend big money on even crap essay's just to get out of work."

He then made a big show of stretching out in his chair and getting comfortable, "As for me? Well I met this cool dude and his roommate and we got high and watched cartoons. Until my parents managed to piss of campus security and Quinn was elected as Keg Queen and we all got kicked out. The end."

"...He's not kidding." Rachel stated once it sunk in.

"No, he is not." Danny assured her, "In fact it's a bit tame considering our shenanigans."

Victor just grinned cockily and nodded.

Link then glanced at his battered watch and grunted, "We've only got a minute before the warning bell."

Danny moaned, "God, I hate Mondays."

"Shush, Garfield." Victor and Rachel said in unison, and then endured synchronized embarrassment as the others laughed.

* * *

Daria was discovering that this particular Monday sucked even worse than usual since in O'Neill's class, the teacher in question was trying to engage his students by talking about a 'current event'.

It didn't take a genius to realize that none of the students cared about a break-in at the 'internet cafe', since most of them had computers at home and the few who didn't could just use the school's computers.

She couldn't resist a little snark when he commented about coming together with the planet, by staring at a flickering screen and text.

And then to her horror, the sick bastard twisted her words around to announce the creation of a 'student coffee house', and that everyone should thank _her_ for the idea.

Even as she logged in as a conscientious objector, Daria wished that the robber had been a serial killer and that Mr. O'Neill had been last night's target.

"It would be a service to all mankind." Daria thought to herself darkly.

* * *

In his rented office space, Jake found himself waiting for a now late client to come in so they could discuss ways that 'patriotic toilet seat covers' could be marketed to the young, hip crowd.

So Jake opened a pamphlet that the nice chiropractor two doors down had given him, Is Your Teenager Using Drugs? Ten Warning Signs.

"Is your teen surly and withdrawn?" jake muttered while clicking a pen and tapping the paper, "Well that's more Daria... so that's a maybe."

He then skimmed a few more of the questions, "Uh, dammit! Come on Jake! You don't need this stupid pamphlet. You already know that Victor's using. I mean, oh sure it's just Pot but that's where it starts!"

A few distinct memories of college began to surface from the memory hole.

"Well... Helen and I got away from that crowd after graduation, not that we ever did anything stronger than acid. But... Uh... Hmmm..."

Jake then grunted and began to wonder if he was worried about nothing.

And then the stray thought of what _Mad Dog_ would think of his grandson smoking dope popped up.

"That heartless bastard wouldn't have just thrown my boy into military school! He would have beaten Vic to within an inch of his life _and then_ would have made him do something demeaning and degrading in public for a whole month! I can't let that bastard dictate what I do from beyond the grave! Grrr-gaahhhh!"

Jake then crumpled up the pamphlet and threw it straight at the garbage, where it bounced off the rim and landed on the floor, inches from the can.

"God-god dammit!"


End file.
